7
votes
Could a moon roughly the size of Earth's have an active core and magnetic field?
The easiest answer is: Yes.
Just state that this moon is much younger than the Moon and that it was formed with a larger core.
The younger age gives less time for the interior of the moon to cool and ...
- 10.9k
4
votes
Could a moon roughly the size of Earth's have an active core and magnetic field?
Fill it with enough fissiles, and anything is possible.
Fissile materials are a major source of "new heat" inside the earth (or at least we believe that's how it works) the percentage is ...
- 806
3
votes
How large, slow, and/or close would the moon need to be to block the sun for at least a few hours?
Let's make a ballpark estimate:
The sun completes an apparent roundtrip in sky in 24 hours. So it covers 360 degrees in 24 hours, or 15 degrees/hour.
Considering that the sun apparent size in the sky ...
- 262k
2
votes
Accepted
How close could a gas giant be to my planet without it becoming a moon?
A Jupiter mass planet orbiting a star with 0.0898 solar masses would be problematic.
Jupiter has a mass of 0.00095 solar masses, which is just 100 times less than the central star you have chosen. ...
- 262k
2
votes
Accepted
Could a moon roughly the size of Earth's have an active core and magnetic field?
Here is a frame challenge.
Having a magnetosphere to protect the atmosphere from being eroded by the stellar wind is only important if the world is massive enough to retain an atmosphere for long.
...
- 27.7k
2
votes
How large, slow, and/or close would the moon need to be to block the sun for at least a few hours?
Currently the track of the moon's shadow on the Earth during an eclipse of the sun takes some hours.
Totality only occurs for a small area on the Earth's surface, sometimes only a few 100 km. This is ...
- 2,867
1
vote
Tides in this planet-moon system
First, calculate how much bigger the radius of this Super-Earth would be. The tidal force scales linearly with that radius. On top of that, the tidal bulge height is proportional to tidal force and ...
- 31
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