11
votes
How would a planet's surface be younger than the planet itself?
In short, you need a process that keeps renewing the surface.
One of the reason is plate tectonics. For this very reason also Earth surface is younger than the planet itself, and finding very old ...
- 276k
5
votes
Is it possible to have stable system where the moon of earth-like planet is only visible part of the year from a fixed point on a surface?
I think that is what happens when the planet is close to the point of becoming tidally locked to its moon: when the duration of a revolution around its axis is close but not the same as the duration ...
- 276k
5
votes
Accepted
Could Moon Phases work in a Concave Hollow-Earth?
If you look at a model of our Solar System, you will notice that we observe phases only for the bodies (Mercury, Venus and Moon) orbiting between the Sun and Earth, due to the relative positions they ...
- 276k
3
votes
How would a planet's surface be younger than the planet itself?
There's a difference between material age and appearance age
@L.Dutch is absolutely right about renewing the surface. (I upvoted his answer). In that case, the material age of the surface (e.g., how ...
- 117k
2
votes
How would a planet's surface be younger than the planet itself?
In the case of Europa, but also Io, tidal forces from Jupiter's gravity cause internal heating, leading to increased volcanic and tectonic activity. For instance, Io is the most volcanically active ...
- 866
1
vote
Habitable Planet with Multiple Moons
This sounds really nifty. The planets in our solar system are arranged in a progressive distance from the sun - the outer ones' orbits are farther apart. The sun's gravitational pull on them is weaker ...
- 41
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible