According to new research, the reason Venus's year is shorter than a day is above the planet's surface.
Venus, which is the second planet from the Sun, is the same size as our Earth. But this is a completely different planet. It has a very dense atmosphere, which consists of carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid. The temperature on the surface of the planet rises to +475 degrees Celsius. But there is one more feature of Venus: it makes a complete revolution around the Sun in 225 Earth days, and it completes a complete revolution around its axis in 243 Earth days. This means that a day on Venus is longer than a year. American scientists believe that they have found the reason for this, according to the Chronicle.info with reference to Focus.
University of California scientists led by Stephen Caine have conducted a new study that suggests that Venus's thick, windy atmosphere is the reason why the year on Venus is shorter than the local day.
« The atmosphere of Venus is not a separate part of the planet that does not interact with its solid surface in any way. It affects everything on the planet, even its speed of rotation», says Kane.
Synchronous rotation of the planet
Scientists believe that without an atmosphere, the rotation of Venus around its axis would have the same speed as the rotation of the planet around the Sun. This phenomenon is known as synchronous rotation. Celestial bodies that have synchronous rotation are under the gravitational influence of a larger object. The rotation of a small object around its axis is synchronized with the rotation around a large cosmic body. And it turns out that one year at such a small object is equal to one day. In this case, an object with synchronous rotation always has only one side towards its larger neighbor. The clearest example of this is our Moon.
New Venus Research
It often takes millions of years for celestial bodies to spin in sync, according to Kane. To understand why Venus rotates so slowly on its axis, scientists studied how long it takes such a planet to have a synchronous rotation.
The data obtained showed that it would take Venus 6.5 million years to become a celestial body with synchronous rotation. Compared to the age of the solar system, which is 4.5 billion years, this is a negligible amount of time.
«This means that there must be a good reason why the rotation period on its axis for Venus is up to has not yet coincided with the period of rotation of the planet around the Sun. I believe that the matter is in the atmosphere of Venus. There are very high speed winds blowing along the surface of the planet as it rotates, and this slows down the speed of rotation of Venus around its axis, and also makes the gravitational pull of the Sun not so strong,» says Kane.
According to scientists, paradoxical as it may sound, but the Sun itself prevents Venus from gaining a synchronous rotation. The energy from the Sun makes Venus's atmosphere more active and provides power for storm winds.
«The fact that we have been able to find a connection between the atmosphere of Venus and its influence on the synchronous rotation of the planet can have far-reaching consequences. And not just for Venus,» says Kane.
The new discovery will help in the study of exoplanets
New data can help scientists who are engaged in the discovery and study of exoplanets, because some of these planets may have the same characteristics, as for synchronous rotation.
«When studying exoplanets, researchers often use models of the behavior of planets in the solar system. Accordingly, if we now know more about why Venus did not achieve synchronous rotation, this can help in understanding the interactions between distant planets and their stars in other star systems», says Kane.