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I saw that this question was asked here: Stabilizing the obliquity of a planet except that the consensus was that a moon is mandatory. For my scenario: What should an inactive planet's topology be for nutrient circulation? I need to avoid any heating in the core of my planet, and a moon will do just that.

Is there any way to stabilize the tilt of a planet in a reasonable range (let's say it oscillates between 0° and 30° in worst case scenario, stays on 15° ideally) without heating its core?

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  • $\begingroup$ In your plan you are already putting up a HUGE stonking big magnetic field to do the solar wind harvesting. Just angle that field relative to the solar magnetic fields, for attitude control. $\endgroup$
    – PcMan
    Commented Jan 1, 2021 at 18:52
  • $\begingroup$ This is genius. It will have a small impact, but might be more than enough to hold the thing in place over large periods of time. Thanks! $\endgroup$
    – GloomyBoy
    Commented Jan 1, 2021 at 22:24
  • $\begingroup$ "a moon will do just that": how much will it do? It's not a significant source of heating here on Earth. $\endgroup$
    – Christopher James Huff
    Commented Jan 2, 2021 at 1:50
  • $\begingroup$ If the moon and planet are tidally locked to each other, then there will be no heating from the moon. $\endgroup$
    – Brianorca
    Commented Nov 16, 2023 at 23:05

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The moon orbiting the Earth may heat its core a bit but not significantly. Most of the core heat comes from the radionuclides decaying. If you take a marble and spin it on a table top you will see that the spin axis does not stay in one spot. Because it’s pretty much spherical, the North Pole meanders all over the surface of the marble. Tidal forces of the moon stabilizes Earth’s spin axis.

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Studies in 2011 scientists Jack Lissauer, Jason Barnes and John Chambers used simulations to see what would happen if we didn't have a moon. They found out that the earth would only wobble by 10 degrees more than its present angle (23.5 degrees). Also if the earth spun faster we wouldn't need a moon either because earth would be able to make itself stable because of the gravity of other planets. (I'm sorry if any of this is incorrect.)

Website: Phys.org

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