petrushka.googol Posted October 25, 2015 Posted October 25, 2015 What causes planetary wobble and does it increase over time ?
Ophiolite Posted November 1, 2015 Posted November 1, 2015 Remnant motions from planetary formation and gravitational interactions with the sun and other bodies. "Wobbles", I understand, tend to behave chaotically. Mars can tilt - and has tilted - far from its present 24 degree axial orientation. The Earth's wobble is constrained by the moon.
MigL Posted November 2, 2015 Posted November 2, 2015 Can this 'wobble' or oscillation, converge and disappear altogether, or diverge and destroy a planet/moon ?
Ophiolite Posted November 2, 2015 Posted November 2, 2015 Can this 'wobble' or oscillation, converge and disappear altogether, or diverge and destroy a planet/moon ? This is well above my pay grade, but I have read nothing to suggest that the wobble could be destructive in that sense. Further, intuitively the energies involved in "wobbling" are orders of magnitude different from those required to destroy a planet. If my understanding is correct, that these wobbles are chaotic in nature, then there may be periods when the wobble seems to have disappeared, only to re-appear many millions of years later.
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