In a voluminous Internet study, the author systematized a lot of materials found on the Web. There are a lot of mysteries in our solar system, some of them are quite difficult to understand without special education. But there are even more of those, the essence of which is quite easy to understand for an unprepared person.

Raising the question of possible intelligent intervention in the formation of the solar system far from new.

Candidate of Technical Sciences Alim Voitsekhovsky published a book back in 1993 "The solar system is a creation of the mind?", however, mainly based on the analysis of non-stationary phenomena.

Senior Researcher at the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics SB RAS, Candidate of Phys.-Math. Sciences Sergey Yazev five years ago wrote an article considering a model of artificial interference in the formation of planetary orbits billions of years ago.

On October 12, 2005, an article was published in Komsomolskaya Pravda “Was the solar system built by aliens?” (http://www.kp.ru/daily/23594/45408/ ), which was reproduced by electronic media.

Not all arguments could be accepted. I believed and believe that the main attention should have been paid not to the appearance of UFOs and light flashes, but rather to the analysis of the elements of the orbits of celestial bodies and stationary phenomena (primarily the relief of the surface of planets and satellites). That is, everything that is the result of many years of astronomical observations and spacecraft research, and, therefore, can be subjected to subsequent verification.

There is a need to systematize the data that meet the specified criteria. I decided to start an Internet - research, and anonymously - using the nickname uncle_Serg on the Web, and in print publications - the pseudonym "Fedor Dergachev".

We must not forget, however, that"An artifact named "Solar System"",for all its merits, is not a scientific work, but only a selection of materials on a specific topic. Therefore, I considered it necessary to formulate some conclusions in this article.

To come to certain conclusions, it is necessary to re-read the main theses of the "Artifact ...". I will only note that here I do not provide links everywhere, since some of the quoted materials have been removed from the Internet. However, all links can be verified on the above site.

Part one. "Description of the Artifact"

Materials on the anomalies of the planets, as well as their satellites, have accumulated quite enough. I would like to present them within the framework of a coherent and obvious logical construction for readers. Thus, the idea was born to use the phenomenon of resonance, which permeates the entire solar system, to “structure” the topic.

Section: "Resonant rotation of Venus and Mercury"

«

But what kind of force makes Mercury align not with the Sun, but with the Earth. Or is it a coincidence? Even more weirdness in the rotation of Venus...

Venus has many unsolvable mysteries. Why does it not have a magnetic field and radiation belts? Why is water from the bowels of a heavy and heated planet not squeezed out into the atmosphere, as happened on Earth? Why Venus does not rotate from west to east, like all planets, but from east to west? Maybe she turned upside down and her north pole became south? Or someone threw it into orbit, having previously twisted it in the other direction? And the most striking, and for the Earth, also the eternal mockery of the “morning star”: with a periodicity of 584 days, it approaches the Earth at a minimum distance, turning out to be in bottom connection, and at these moments Venus always faces the Earth with the same side. This strange look, eye to eye, cannot be explained in terms of classical celestial mechanics». (M. Karpenko. "The Universe is reasonable"; "Izvestia", July 24, 2002).

On other planetary resonances S. Yazev reports the following:

“The orbit of Saturn shows a resonance of 2:5 with respect to Jupiter, the formula “2W of Jupiter - 5W of Saturn = 0” belongs to Laplace ...

It is known that the orbit of Uranus has a 1:3 resonance with respect to Saturn, the orbit of Neptune has a 1:2 resonance with respect to Uranus, the orbit of Pluto has a 1:3 resonance with respect to Neptune

In the book by L.V. Xanfomality "Parade of the Planets" indicates that the structure of the solar system, apparently, was determined by Jupiter, since the parameters of the orbits of all planets are in the correct ratios with its orbit. There are also references to works that state that formation of Jupiter in its current orbit is an unlikely event. Apparently, despite the large number of ... models that explain the resonant properties of the solar system, one can also keep in mind the model of artificial intervention». ("Occam's Razor and the Structure of the Solar System").

Section: "Coincidence of the angular sizes of the Sun and the Moon"

Did not forget S. Yazev and about the moon:

« - Equality of the angular sizes of the Sun and the Moon during observations from the Earth, familiar from childhood and providing us with the opportunity to observe total (not annular) solar eclipses.
- Equality of the ratio of the diameter of the Sun to the diameter of the Earth and the distance from the Sun to the Earth to the diameter of the Sun with an accuracy of 1% may also be of some interest. When expressed in kilometers, it looks like this:
1390000:12751 = 109
149600000:1390000 = 108
- Equality of the period of revolution of the Moon around the Earth to the period of its rotation around its axis(sidereal lunar month, 27.32 days) and the Carrington period of the Sun's rotation(27.28 days) also looks interesting. Shugrin and Obut indicate that 600-650 million years ago the synodic lunar month was equal to 27 modern days, i.e. there was an exact resonance with the Sun.”("Occam's Razor and the Structure of the Solar System").

Section: “Facing one side to the planet”

Returning to the topic of resonances, it should be noted that the Moon is also a celestial body, one side of which is constantly facing our planet (which, in fact, means "equality of the period of revolution of the moon around the earth to the period of its rotation around its axis").

Topic: "The moon faces the Earth on one side"

“The moon faces the Earth on one side (resonant rotation 1:1 )». (Forum site "Astrolab.Ru").
And the record holder for resonances is, of course, a pair Pluto - Charon. They are rotate, always facing the same sides to each other. For designers of space elevators, they would be an ideal testing ground for technology development.

Pluto and Charon

“Charon is located at a distance of 19,405 km from the center of Pluto and moves in an orbit located in the equatorial plane of the planet. It constantly faces Pluto on one side, like the Moon to the Earth.. But the ideality of this synchronously moving pair lies in the fact that Pluto always faces Charon with the same hemisphere. In other words, the periods of rotation of both bodies around their axes and the orbital period of Charon coincide, it is equal to 6.4 days. Perhaps the same fate awaits our planet in the distant future. The diameter of Pluto is 2390 kilometers, and its satellite is 1186 kilometers. A truly unique couple! Nowhere else in the solar system is there such a planet that is only twice the size of its satellite. Pluto is rightly called a double planet.(Project "Astrogalaxy"."Planets of the Solar System. Pluto).

The next step, quite logically, was to consider the anomalies of other satellites whose axial rotation is synchronous with the orbital. There were a great many of them, or, to be more precise, almost all of them.

Astronomical websites state that synchronously revolve around their planets(constantly facing them with one side) satellites of Earth, Mars, Saturn(except Hyperion, Phoebe and Ymir), Uranus, Neptune(except Nereid) and Pluto. In system Jupiter This rotation is typical for a significant part of the satellites, including all the Galilean.

Synchronous rotation is most often explained by tidal interactions. However, there are questions here as well. I will return to this topic later.

Pluto has two new moons

"According to preliminary data, satellites revolve around Pluto in circular orbits in the same plane as Charon...

New satellites make it much more difficult to explain the origin of the Pluto system. It is unclear how they could condense in close proximity to massive Charon. But the hypothesis of gravitational capture of satellites also fails, since the orbits of captured bodies are extremely rarely circular [? - F.D.]». ("Charon Got Colleagues". November 2, 2005).

It is also customary to consider satellites with irregular (retrograde) orbital motion "captured", and therefore not having synchronous axial and orbital rotation. In this case, Saturn's moon Phoebe is usually referred to, the Cassini photographs of which confirm its origin from the Kuiper Belt. However, below I will show that this opinion is fundamentally wrong.

A feature of many satellites with synchronous rotation are ideal circular orbits and the coincidence of the plane of the satellite's orbit with the plane of the planet's equator. (Table 1-4).

Tables of characteristics of orbits of some satellites with synchronous rotation

Tab. one. Weakly eccentric (almost circular) orbits

Tab. 2. Ideal circular orbits

Triton has a retrograde (reverse) rotation around Neptune

Tab. 3. The plane of the satellite's orbit is close to the plane of the planet's equator

Tab. four. The plane of the satellite's orbit ideally coincides with the plane of the planet's equator

But this raises the first questions.

Let us consider the almost generally accepted opinion that Phobos and Deimos are former asteroids that passed into their current orbit after their gravitational capture by Mars from their former trajectory in the ecliptic plane. Recall that the axial deviation of Mars is 25.2°. That is how much it was required to rotate the plane of the orbits of Phobos and Deimos, simultaneously turning them from elongated elliptical into perfectly circular and synchronizing the axial rotation with the orbital.

Then the Moon is more likely to be an asteroid captured by the Earth: after all, the plane of its orbit comes close enough to the ecliptic.

« The moon revolves around the earth not at all in the plane of the earth's equator, as it should be for a real satellite. The plane of its orbit comes close enough to the ecliptic, that is, to the plane in which the planets normally revolve around the Sun.(A_lexey. Forum “Is the Moon a satellite of the Earth or an independent planet?” of the Stargazer website).

Topic: "Satellites of Mars Phobos and Deimos: axial rotation is synchronous with the orbital"

“Just the satellites of Mars, unlike the Moon, are “correct”, albeit small. They both rotate in the same plane(difference 1.7 degrees), and in the plane of the planet's equator, and if you look at other natural satellites of the planets, then they all, without exception, rotate in the plane of the equator. And the orbits of the Martian moons are a regular circle. BUT the fact that they are "captured" contradicts many factors. Asteroid "satellites", for example, Jupiter, describe such a pretzel ... and they spin in all planes of the planet, and in general there is an opinion that Phobos and Deimos are fragments of one Martian "Moon" that once existed, crushed by the planet's gravity at dawn creation of the solar system. Plus they have a similar structure.(Alexei).

"I've always been amazed at how after gravitational capture it is possible to obtain a circular orbit?

BUT in the case of Mars, there are even two satellites, and both have a circle in the plane of the equator...» (Parfen).

« It is very hard to believe that two different captured satellites are rotating in the same plane, even if we imagine that the fact that their orbit passes along the equator of the planet- just an accident.(A_leksey, Forum “Is the Moon a satellite of the Earth or an independent planet?” of the Astrologer site).

“Most scientists are still inclined to believe that Phobos and Deimos are asteroids that have fallen into the gravitational captivity of Mars. However this theory, according to University of Virginia professor Fred Singer, is in conflict with the laws of physics and cannot explain why both satellites move around the planet in almost circular and equatorial orbits. The periods of rotation around the axis of each of the satellites coincides with the period of revolution around Mars. ("Did Mars Have a Moon?")

"Apparently Phobos and Deimos were captured about a billion years ago». (D. Rothery. "Planets". p. 131).

The truth, as always, lies somewhere in the middle. Phobos and Deimos could not get from the Asteroid Belt to a beautiful orbit around Mars (that is, the forum participants and F. Singer are right), but they still got there (this is the correctness of the "official" planetology). To find out, who (or what) helped them in this about a billion years ago- the purpose of this study.

Topic: "The satellite of Amalthea rotates synchronously around Jupiter"

“Somewhere in the parallel thread it was said about Amalthea, and also, one of the options is gravitational capture, because it could not have formed so close to Jupiter. And again - the circle and the plane of the equator ... Maybe the Galilean satellites acted on it and stabilized the orbit.

And who Phobos and Deimos stabilized? Perhaps mathematicians have a model, because everything is clear to them ... "(Parfen. Forum “Is the Moon a satellite of the Earth or an independent planet?” of the Astrologer site).

« Four small inner satellites closer to Io, are now identified as ring moons that form Jupiter's ring system. These are Metis, Adrastea and Theba, discovered by Voyager 1 in 1979, and Amalthea, discovered by Barnard in 1892. The Galileo spacecraft obtained detailed images of these satellites, which showed their irregular, bizarre shape and heavily cratered surface. These satellites are in synchronous rotation and have large geological features in the form of impact craters...

Amalthea is in synchronous rotation with Jupiter, that is, the period of revolution of the satellite around Jupiter is equal to the period of rotation of Amalthea around its own axis (0.498179 days)". ("Rotation of Amalthea").

« The ring of Jupiter is a mysterious phenomenon, it is not clear how it can exist at all. Initial analysis showed that the particles in the ring are mostly fine. If so, then the riddle will become even more difficult to solve, since the smaller the particles, the more difficult it is for them to stay in orbit around the planet and not settle on it». (Yearbook "Science and Humanity. 1981". "Chronicle of Science", p. 333).

"Generally accepted model the formation of Jupiter's moons suggests that satellites closer to the planet are made of denser material than those in distant orbits. This is based on the theory that the young Jupiter, as a smaller version of the early Sun, was incandescent. Because of this, the nearest Jovian satellites could not keep ice, frozen gases and other low-melting and low-density materials. The four largest moons of Jupiter fit this pattern. The innermost of these, Io, is also the most dense, consisting mainly of stone and iron. However, new data from Galileo suggests that even if Amalthea and pretty "leaky", anyway the material of the individual fragments of which it consists has a lower density than Io». ("Jupiter's satellite Amalthea after the disaster turned into a pile of stones". 12.12.2002).

Amalthea could not have formed this close to Jupiter- the initial protoplanetary nebula in such an orbit would not have been allowed to condense by the attraction of a giant planet. But it is even more difficult to imagine the movement of Amalthea from orbit in the Asteroid Belt to perfectly circular in proximity to the gas giant(2.55 Jupiter radii) and subsequent synchronization of the axial rotation with the orbital. I note that the latter does not happen "automatically" - not all satellites in the Jupiter system have resonant rotation.

And yet "impossible displacement" happened.

In order not to return later to the explanation of the reasons, I will make an assumption. The one who, millions of years ago, launched the mechanism that moved Amalthea (and maybe all four small inner satellites closer to Io) wanted use them as "ring satellites" that form Jupiter's ring system. True, in this case it is more important to know not “why”, but “how”.

Topic: "Satellite Triton rotates synchronously around Neptune"

« Tritonhas an unusual orbit. Hemoving in the opposite direction of Neptune's rotation, while its orbit is strongly inclined to the plane of the planet's equator and to the plane of the ecliptic. It is the only large satellite moving in the opposite direction. One more featureTriton's orbit - it is a perfectly regular circle(its eccentricity is equal to the value with 16 decimal places)”.("Triton, satellite of Neptune" ).

Triton is a satellite of Neptune(NASA,Voyager 2)

"As is known,Triton(whose mass(2.15x10^22 kg)about 40 percent greater than the mass of Pluto, and a diameter of approximately 2,700 kilometers) has an inclined orbit and moves in the opposite direction of the rotation of Neptune itself (that is, it is characterized by the so-called "irregular" orbital motion) . This is a sure sign that such a satellite was once captured, and not born near a giant, but astronomers have long failed to understand the mechanism of this capture. The problem was that Triton had to lose some energy in order to get into its current near-perfectly circular orbit. . A collision with some of the oldest Neptunian moons could, in principle, slow down the movement of Triton, but such a hypothesis has its own difficulties: if the target moon were small, then the capture of Triton simply could not be carried out, while an impact on a satellite of a sufficiently large size would almost inevitably have to destroy Triton itself ...

Well, other available theories (for example, Triton could still “slow down”, passing through a more extensive system of Neptune’s rings than now, or experience the effect of aerodynamic braking from its primordial gaseous disk) are forced to deal with less probable processes (you have to “pick up” some “particularly successful” moment in the history of the development of the solar system, when the disk of Neptune, after Triton deceleration, would immediately dissipate, and not slow it down to the point that the satellite would simply crash into the planet) ...

There were earlier speculations about connection of the fate of Triton with Pluto, whose orbit is known to intersect Neptune's, but it is not clear whether such a relationship has been tested with any serious simulations.

Triton's orbit is located between a group of relatively small inner moons with "correct", regular orbits and an outer group of again small satellites with irregular (retrograde) orbits. Due to the "wrong" movement in the orbit, the tidal interaction between Neptune and Triton takes energy from Triton, which leads to a decrease in its orbit. In the distant future, the satellite will either collapse (perhaps turning into a ring) or fall into Neptune. ("The Capture of Triton by Neptune: One of the Problems" ).

"Astronomers have established: Triton always faces Neptune with the same "side"». (B. I. Silkin. “In the world of many moons. Satellites of the planets”, p. 192).

The situation with the satellite of Neptune is absolutely unambiguous. All researchers agree that Triton with its retrograde rotation could not have formed from the original protosolar nebula in its current orbit, it was formed somewhere else(possibly in the Kuiper Belt) and was later "captured" by Neptune.

An obvious conclusion follows from this: satellites, whose axial rotation is synchronous with the orbital, not necessarily formed in the vicinity of their planets. They can be "captured", and only then go into a circular orbit and acquire an orbital resonance.

Another thing is that scientists cannot clearly explain even a “rough” capture, as evidenced by the above article from the site “galspace.spb.ru”. And the question of the "ideality" of the circular orbit of Triton and its synchronous rotation, they quietly "slow down".

So, the question is raised. It's time to move on to what traces left on the surface of satellites with resonant rotation that an ancient mechanism that carried out all these "jewelry" operations with giant celestial bodies.

But first, consider a satellite that does not have the slightest degree of synchronous rotation.

Chaotic rotation of Hyperion, a satellite of Saturn

("Photo 1" of Saturn's moon Hyperion).
A huge crater covers almost the entire side of the satellite.
“Hyperion is remarkable in that as it moves along its orbit, it rotates randomly, that is, its period and axis of rotation change absolutely randomly. This is the result of tidal pull from Saturn..[? - F.D.].The same explains eccentric orbit Hyperion and his elongated shape ». (D. Rothery. "Planets". p. 207).
“Being a satellite of Saturn, you don’t really get around :).
In theory (did not find exact data), he[Iapetus, - F.D.](like our moon) the period of revolution coincides with the length of the day.
Otherwise Saturn's gravity will arrange such a "massage" that can crumble." (zyxman07. Forum "Iapetus" of the site "Membrane" ).
Despite the eccentric orbit, Hyperion is not considered a "captured" asteroid, at least I have not seen any such opinion in print or on the Internet. The “elongated” shape “did not prevent” the transition to a synchronous orbit, for example, Phobos and Amalthea.

But the main thing is that the powerful gravity of Saturn "for some reason" did not even think of "synchronizing" the rotation of the satellite, although, according to the general opinion, it "arranged a massage" for the much more distant Iapetus (whose distance is 3.5 million km from Saturn versus 1.5 million km at Hyperion).

Let's return to the previous topic and once again compare satellites with retrograde orbital motion - Phoebe and Triton, which came from the Kuiper Belt. The tidal forces of Saturn did not "level" Phoebe's orbit and slow down its axial rotation(Similarly, Jupiter's retrograde moons Ananke, Karma, Pasipheus and Sinop were "left alone" by Jupiter's gravity). But Triton retrograde Neptune's tidal pull for some reason "lovingly" (specially exaggerating) transferred to a perfectly circular orbit and synchronized its axial rotation with the orbital.

So that I conclude: to say that the resonance of the satellites, whose axial rotation is synchronous with the orbital, "is the result of tidal attraction from the planet" is not necessary.

I do not argue that the tidal forces of the planet can support the already received resonance. To do this, there are simple (without regard to scale) techniques. But more on that later.

How, then, do satellites (asteroids, Kuiper belt objects) move to ideal circular orbits exactly in the plane of the equator, and even get synchronous rotation?

Let's look at the photo of the "chaotic" Hyperion ( Photo 1). A huge impact crater covers almost the entire side of the moon. After such a collision, the chaotic rotation and eccentric orbit of the satellite are not surprising. Nothing surprising at all. "Just" a natural satellite.

Unlike most others.

But in other satellites (which received synchronous rotation), impact craters, unlike Hyperion, for some reason did not lead to such stunning results.

Tab. 5. Satellite impact craters with synchronous rotation

* The diameter of the outer ring of the basin reaches 2500 km.
** Valhalla is surrounded by rings of concentric faults, the outermost of which has a diameter of 4000 km.

The mechanism of artificial interference in the formation of the solar system

“How did the orbits of the planets of the solar system, “super stable” in contrast to the orbits of exoplanets, form? Gas giants are a special topic, but the inner planets have a solid surface that has preserved traces of ancient interactions. I began to analyze whether craters of "catastrophic" (impact) origin did not participate in the formation of the orbits of the terrestrial planets.

However, the constant use of the combination "catastrophic craters" could give the false impression that I am a supporter of the theory of "planetary explosions" in ancient times (including the hypothesis of the death of the planet Phaethon).

I put the word "catastrophic" in the meaning of "destructive, extremely strongly influenced the state of the surface." Many impact craters do look like classic impact craters, with a pronounced single annular ridge with a hill in the center. But I never believed that such a collision is the result of explosions of planets in the solar system, followed by a "chaotic" fall of fragments on planets and satellites.

Purely theoretically, there is nothing “criminal” in the hypothesis of planetary explosions. But when researchers savor the “planetary billiards” and describe in detail how the explosion of a particular planet (for example, Phaethon) becomes a real shock for the entire solar system, I cannot agree with such an interpretation.

When bodies of gigantic masses collide, in addition to damage to the surface (there is no point in denying them - they are clearly visible in photographs), the angular momentum of the planet (satellite, asteroid) must also change.

Mercury was recognized as a space donor

"Mercury could have been noticeably larger before some of its material" spilled out "on Earth and Venus after collision with a large celestial body, suggest employees of the University of Bern. They tested the hypothetical scenario using computer simulations and found that the collision should have involved "Protomercury", whose mass was 2.25 times the mass of the current planet, and "planetesimal", that is, a giant asteroid, half the size of modern Mercury. This is reported by the site "Details".

The hypothesis was supposed to explain the anomalous density of Mercury: it is known that it is noticeably greater than that of other "solid" planets, which implies that the heavy metal core, apparently, is surrounded by a thin mantle and crust. If the "collisional" version is correct, then after the cataclysm, a noticeable part of the substance, consisting mainly of silicates, should have left the planet ...

In Burn, they do not claim that this version is the only possible one, but they hope that probe data will confirm it. As you know, in 2011, the NASA Messenger probe will visit the planet, which will build a map of the distribution of minerals on the planet's surface.

“There are huge chasms on the surface of Mercury, some up to hundreds of kilometers long and up to three kilometers deep. One of the biggest features on the surface of Mercury isCaloris basin [« Zary plain» - F.D.]. Its diameter is approximately 1300 km. It looks like big pools on the moon. Like moon pools, its appearance may have been caused by a very large collision in the early history of the solar system».

“The Caloris Basin is clearly a vast impact formation. At the end of the cratering era, approximately 3-4 billion years ago, a huge asteroid - perhaps the largest ever to hit the surface of Mercury - hit the planet. Unlike earlier impacts, which only pockmarked Mercury's surface, this violent impact caused the mantle to rupture all the way to the planet's molten interior. From there, a huge mass of lava gushed out and flooded a giant crater. Then the lava froze and hardened, but the "waves" on the sea of ​​molten rock survived forever.

Apparently, the impact that shook the planet and led to the formation of the Caloris Basin had a significant impact on some other areas of Mercury. Diametrically opposite the Caloris Basin(i.e. exactly on the opposite side of the planet from him) there is a wave-like area of ​​​​an unusual type. This territory ... is covered with thousands of closely spaced blocky hills 0.25-2 km high. It is natural to assume that the powerful seismic waves that arose during the impact that formed the Caloris Basin, having passed through the planet, were focused on its other side. The ground vibrated and shook with such force that thousands of mountains more than a kilometer high rose literally in a matter of seconds. It appears to have been the most catastrophic event in the history of the planet. ».

What do we observe after a series of all these catastrophic collisions? The deviation of Mercury's axis from the perpendicular to the plane of its revolution around the Sun (axial deviation) is 0.1 degrees! Not to mention the amazing resonance:

« The movement of Mercury is coordinated with the movement of the Earth. From time to time, Mercury is in inferior conjunction with the Earth. This is the name given to the situation when the Earth and Mercury are on the same side of the Sun, lining up with it on the same straight line.

Inferior conjunction repeats every 116 days, which coincides with the time of two full revolutions of Mercury and, meeting with the Earth, Mercury always faces it with the same side. But what kind of force makes Mercury align not with the Sun, but with the Earth. Or is it a coincidence?

For all the exoticism of the situation, Mercury, “equal to the Earth”, rotates (albeit very slowly), nevertheless, in the same direction as most of the planets of the solar system. For example, Venus would have to rotate also very slow, but reversed. The most amazing thing is that Venus rotates just like that.

Reverse rotation of Venus

Need an explanation and incomprehensibly anomalous rotation of Venus:

“In the 80s. 19th century Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli found that Venus rotates much more slowly. Then he suggested that the planet faces the Sun on one side, like the Moon to the Earth, and, therefore, its period of rotation is equal to the period of revolution around the Sun - 225 days. The same point of view was expressed in relation to Mercury. But in both cases this conclusion was wrong. Only in the 60s. XX century, the use of radar allowed American and Soviet astronomers to prove that the rotation of Venus is the opposite, that is, it rotates in the opposite direction to the rotation of the Earth, Mars, Jupiter and other planets. In 1970 . two groups of American scientists on observations for 1962-1969. determined that the period of rotation of Venus is 243 days. The Soviet radiophysicists also acquired a close significance. The rotation around the axis and the orbital motion of the planet determine the apparent movement of the Sun across its sky. Knowing the periods of rotation and circulation, it is easy to calculate the duration of a solar day on Venus. It turns out that they are 117 times longer than the earth, and the Venusian year consists of less than two such days.

Now suppose that we observe Venus in superior conjunction, i.e. when the Sun is between the Earth and Venus. This configuration will be repeated after 585 Earth days: being at other points in their orbits, the planets will occupy the same position relative to each other and the Sun. Exactly five local solar days will pass on Venus during this time (585 = 117 x 5). And that means it will be turned to the Sun (and, therefore, to the Earth) by the same side as at the moment of the previous conjunction . This mutual motion of the planets is called resonant.; it is caused, apparently, by the long-term influence of the Earth's gravitational field on Venus. That is why astronomers of the past and the beginning of this century believed that Venus always faces the Sun on one side.

“The rotation of Venus has another very interesting feature. Its speed is just during the inferior conjunction, Venus faces the Earth all the time with the same side. The reasons for this consistency between the rotation of Venus and the orbital motion of the Earth are not yet clear. ».

“The direction of rotation of Venus around its axis is the opposite, that is, opposite to the direction of its rotation around the Sun. For all other planets (excluding Uranus), including our Earth, the direction of rotation is direct, that is, it coincides with the direction of rotation of the planet around the Sun ...

It is interesting to note that the period of rotation of Venus is very close to the period of the so-called resonant rotation of the planet relative to the Earth, equal to 243.16 Earth days. During the resonant rotation between each inferior and superior conjunction, Venus makes exactly one revolution relative to the Earth, and therefore, at the conjunction, it faces the Earth with the same side. ».

Venuswell, it could not have formed from a protoplanetary cloud in any way, having a reverse rotation - therefore, it changed the direction of rotation later. This is not to say that scientists did not try to come up with anything to explain this phenomenon. But their models turned out to be confusing and contradictory:

“Based on a systematic analysis of the facts relating to this issue, we state that the orientation of Venus to the Earth is always the same side in the epoch of inferior conjunction, as well as its retrograde rotation are a consequence of the law of gravity acting between the Earth and "the displacement of the center of the figure of Venus relative to the center of mass by 1.5 km in the direction of the Earth"».

"This is what I. Shklovsky writes in his famous book "The Universe, Life, Mind" :

“... During the lower connection (i.e., when the distance between Venus and the Earth is minimal), Venus is always turned to the Earth with the same side ...

Mercury also has this feature.... If the slow rotation of Mercury can still be explained by the action of solar tides, then the same explanation for Venus faces significant difficulties ... It is hypothesized that Venus was slowed down by Mercury, which was once its satellite ...

Just as in the case of the Earth-Moon system, at the beginning the present two inner planets formed a very close pair with a fast axial rotation. Due to the tides, the distance between the planets increased, and the axial rotation slowed down. When the semi-major axis of the orbit reached approx. 500 thousand km, this pair "broke", i.e. the planets ceased to be gravitationally bound... The rupture of the Earth-Moon pair did not occur due to the relatively small mass of the Moon and greater distance from the Sun. As a trace of these bygone events, a significant eccentricity of Mercury's orbit remained and Common Orientation of Venus and Mercury in Inferior Conjunction. This hypothesis also explains the lack of satellites of Venus and Mercury and the complex surface topography of Venus, which can be explained by the deformation of its crust by powerful tidal forces from the rather massive Mercury.

“Not so long ago, in the pages of the scientific press, the question of whether Wasn't Mercury a satellite of Venus in the past?, then moving under the influence of the powerful gravitational attraction of the Sun into orbit around it. If Mercury really was a satellite of Venus before, then even earlier it should have moved into the orbit of Venus from an orbit around the Sun, located between the orbits of Venus and the Earth. Having greater relative deceleration than Venus, Mercury could come close to it and move into its orbit, while changing the forward direction of reversal. Mercury could not only stop the slow and direct axial rotation of Venus under the influence of tidal friction, but also make it slowly rotate in the opposite direction. Thus, Mercury automatically changed the direction of its circulation relative to Venus to a direct one, and Venus approached the Sun. As a result of the capture by the Sun, Mercury returned to the near-solar orbit, being ahead of Venus. However, there are a number of issues that need to be resolved. Question one: why was Mercury able to make Venus rotate in the opposite direction, and Charon could not force Pluto to rotate in the opposite direction? After all, the ratio of their masses is approximately the same - 15:1. This question can be answered in some other way, for example, by assuming that Venus had another large moon like the moon which, approaching under the influence of tidal friction(as Phobos and Triton are now approaching their planets) to the surface of Venus, collapsed on it and, transferring its angular momentum to Venus, made it rotate in the opposite direction, since this hypothetical satellite revolved around Venus in the opposite direction.

But a second, more serious question arises: if Mercury was a satellite of Venus, it should not have moved away from Venus, like the Moon from the Earth, but approached it, since, firstly, Venus rotates slowly and its period of rotation would be less than the period of revolution Mercury, secondly, Venus rotates in the opposite direction. However, here too one can find the answer, for example, assuming that the second satellite, having fallen on the surface of Venus, caused it to rotate rapidly in the opposite direction, so that the period of rotation of Venus became less than the period of revolution of Mercury, which, as a result, began to move away from it faster and, having gone beyond the sphere of influence of Venus, passed into a near-solar orbit ... "

Little convincing. And yet, again and again, scientists resort to their favorite “catastrophic” scenarios:

“A long-known phenomenon - the absence of a natural satellite on the planet Venus, is explained in their own way by young scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). “The model presented last Monday at the Division for Planetary Sciences conference in Pasadena by Alex Alemi and Caltech fellow David Stevenson suggests that Venus once had a moon, but it broke apart. In the solar system there is another planet without a satellite - Mercury (once a version was put forward that he was the former satellite of Venus). And he, like Venus, rotates slowly, and this fact, as well as the absence of a magnetic field in Venus and the extremely weak magnetic field of Mercury, were considered the main explanation for the mysterious phenomenon that Californian planetologists paid attention to. Venus makes a full rotation around its axis in 243 Earth days, but, according to the authors of the model, this is not the only thing. Unlike the Earth and other planets, Venus rotates clockwise when viewed from the planet's north pole. And this may be evidence that she underwent not one, but two strong collisions - the first knocked the satellite out of her, and this satellite, which was knocked out earlier, suffered from the second.

According to Alemi and Stevenson, from the first blow, Venus spun counterclockwise, and the piece knocked out of it became a satellite, just as our Moon was formed from the collision of the Earth with a celestial body the size of Mars. The second blow returned everything to its place, and Venus began to spin clockwise, as it is now.. However, at the same time, solar gravity contributed to slowing down the rotation of Venus and even to reversing the direction of its movement. This reversal, in turn, affected the gravitational interactions between the satellite and the planet, as a result of which the satellite began to move, as it were, inward, i.e. approach the planet with an inevitable collision with it. From the second collision, too, a satellite may or may not have arisen, notes the Scientific American.com news feed that reported the Alemi-Stevenson model. And this hypothetical satellite, if it arose, could be blown to pieces by the first satellite falling on the planet. According to Stevenson, their model can be tested by looking at the isotopic traces in the Venusian rock - their exoticism can be regarded as evidence of a collision with a foreign celestial body.

It is clear why the authors of the hypothesis needed such a complex scenario. Indeed, the first impact must have caused Venus to rotate erratically, and only the second "impact" was able to give it its current rotation. Another thing is that in order to achieve resonance with the Earth, the force, direction and angle of impacts had to be calculated so accurately that Alemi and Stevenson rest. How "filigree" tuning of the resonant rotation of Venus relative to the Earth is possible, based on random factors - judge for yourself.

No matter what cataclysms and “planetary explosions” shook the solar system in the past, I want to state that without careful and subtle adjustment at the same time, two planets of the solar system (Venus and Mercury) will not “tune in” in any way. And the fact that such an adjustment is being carried out is obvious to me. BUT the official verdict of science now is:

« Venus's slow rotation and its resonance with Earth's motion are unsolved mysteries ».

As for the practically "zero" axial deviation of Mercury, it led to a very interesting result.

Unusually high reflection of radio waves by the polar regions of Mercury

"Sounding of Mercury by radar from the Earth showed unusually high reflection of radio waves by the polar regions of Mercury. What is it, ice, as the popular explanation says? No one knows.

But where does the ice come from on the planet closest to the Sun, where during the day at the equator the temperature reaches 400 degrees Celsius? The fact is that in the region of the poles, in craters where the sun's rays never reach, the temperature is -200 ° . And there could well have been preserved ice brought by comets.

“Radar studies of the circumpolar regions of the planet showed the presence of a substance that strongly reflects radio waves, the most likely candidate for which is ordinary water ice. Entering the surface of Mercury when comets hit it, the water evaporates and travels around the planet until it freezes in the polar regions at the bottom of deep craters, where the Sun never looks, and where ice can remain almost indefinitely.

“It would seem that talking about the possibility of the existence of ice on Mercury is at least absurd. But in 1992, during radar observations from the Earth near the north and south poles of the planet, areas were first discovered that reflect radio waves very strongly. It was these data that were interpreted as evidence of the presence of ice in the near-surface Mercury layer. Radar made from the Arecibo radio observatory located on the island of Puerto Rico, as well as from the NASA Deep Space Communications Center in Goldstone (California), revealed about 20 rounded spots with a diameter of several tens of kilometers with increased radio reflection. Presumably, these are craters, in which, due to their proximity to the poles of the planet, the sun's rays fall only in passing or do not fall at all. Such craters, called permanently shadowed, are also found on the Moon, and measurements from satellites revealed the presence of a certain amount of water ice in them. Calculations have shown that in the depressions of permanently shaded craters near the poles of Mercury it can be cold enough (–175°C) for ice to exist there for a long time. Even in flat areas near the poles, the calculated daily temperature does not exceed –105°C. Direct measurements of the surface temperature of the polar regions of the planet are still not available.

Despite observations and calculations, the existence of ice on the surface of Mercury or at a shallow depth below it has not yet received unambiguous evidence, since stone rocks containing metal compounds with sulfur and possible metal condensates on the surface of the planet, for example, ions, have increased radio reflection. sodium, which settled on it as a result of the constant "bombardment" of Mercury by particles of the solar wind.

But here the question arises: why is the distribution of areas that strongly reflect radio signals precisely confined to the polar regions of Mercury? Maybe the rest of the territory is protected from the solar wind by the planet's magnetic field? Hopes for clarifying the mystery of ice in the realm of heat are associated only with the flight to Mercury of new automatic space stations equipped with measuring instruments that allow determining the chemical composition of the planet's surface.

It's not even the fact of the existence of ice. If the axial deviation of the planet exceeded the existing 0.1 °, seasonal temperature fluctuations in the reserved areas of Mercury would be inevitable, and the “reserved zones” could not be preserved for millions of years. No other planet in the solar system has such a strict perpendicular to the axis of rotation to the plane of the orbit. It was not in vain that the authors of an article in the journal Vokrug Sveta pointed out that not only ice, but also metal has increased radio reflection. A common feature of the rotation of Mercury and Venus wasearth orientation in inferior conjunction. It would be interesting to know what details of the relief are in the center of the disk of these planets during the lower conjunction with the Earth.

Mercury in resonance with the Sun

The "miracles" in the rotation of Mercury do not end there. It is in another resonance - this time with the Sun:

“An even more interesting joke was played by the tidal forces with Mercury. It makes 1.5 revolutions on its own axis for 1 revolution around the Sun., as a result of the large eccentricity of Mercury's orbit, its angular velocity of rotation around the Sun is variable, maximum during the passage of perigee and minimum during the passage of apogee. And the most interesting thing is that the angular velocity of Mercury's rotation around its own axis with the given parameters of the orbit turns out to be greater at the apogee than the angular velocity of movement along the orbit, and vice versa, less at the perigee. That is, Mercury near the apogee rotates relative to the Sun in one direction, near the perigee in the other direction, and, accordingly, tidal forces spin Mercury in one direction then in the other (in the apogee they slow down the rotation of Mercury, in the perigee they accelerate). It must be assumed that the work done by the tidal forces in both areas is equal, and Mercury does not change its angular velocity of rotation under the action of these forces ( resonant rotation 2:3)».

So, maintaining the rotation of Mercury in resonance with the Sun (which, by the way, other planets do not have), allows it to maintain resonance with the Earth in the same orbit. The sun was a "stabilizer" of orientation to the Earth (our planet itself, being too far away, could not perform such a function in any way).

The Caloris pool (from the Latin for “hot”) got its name because every two Mercurial years it is at the subsolar point when the planet is at perihelion. In other words, every 176 days, when Mercury is closest to the Sun, the luminary is at its zenith over the Caloris Basin. Thus, with every second revolution of the planet around the Sun, the Caloris Basin becomes the hottest place on the planet.

The Caloris Basin is a vast impact formation. At the end of the cratering era, approximately 3-4 billion years ago, a huge asteroid - perhaps the largest ever to hit the surface of Mercury - hit the planet. Unlike earlier impacts, which only pockmarked Mercury's surface, this violent impact caused the mantle to rupture all the way to the planet's molten interior. From there, a huge mass of lava gushed out and flooded a giant crater. Then the lava froze and hardened, but the "waves" on the sea of ​​molten rock were preserved forever.

Largest of hypothetical mascons of Mercury associated with the huge basin of Caloris, always facing the Sun at the perihelion of the orbit».

I make a guess: mascons allow you to save the previously obtained resonant rotation(The role of mascons in spin stabilization was mentioned in "Part 3").

I note that even if this assumption is not confirmed, it will not change anything. It is quite obvious that Mercury retains rotational resonances with the Sun and with the Earth only because it is in the gravitational trap of the Sun, similar to the one in which the apparatus found itself in 1974 "Mariner-10":

« Planet Mercury, as indicated L.V. xanfomality in "Parade of the Planets" has a resonant period with respect to the Earth- 116 Earth days (approximately one third of a year). Attempts to explain this resonance by tidal disturbances from the Earth were far from successful. The tides from the Earth are 1.6 million times weaker than from the Sun and 5.2 times less than from Venus.

The American spacecraft "Mariner-10" hit the resonance after a gravitational maneuver. The period of the satellite unexpectedly amounted to exactly 2 Mercury years (176 days). As a result, every 176 days the device returns to the same point in the orbit and meets Mercury in the same phase with the same details of the surface topography. Unfortunately, all the gas reserves in the vehicle's orientation system were used up. During three approaches on March 29, September 21, 1974 and March 16, 1975, 40% of the planet's surface was photographed, which made it possible to build the first relief maps.

"Mariner 10 in a gravity trap. Four years earlier, when the Mariner 10 flight was still being planned, Giuseppe Colombo was interested in what orbit the spacecraft would follow around the Sun after it left the vicinity of Mercury. Colombo determined that Mariner 10 should eventually go into a highly elongated elliptical orbit, making one revolution around the sun in 176 days. But that's exactly two Mercury years.! Therefore, Mariner 10 must return to Mercury every 176 days. A second meeting is possible. And the third.
The second time Mariner 10 flew past Mercury was on September 21, 1974. About 2,000 more photographs were taken. On the afternoon of March 16, 1975, Mariner 10 again swept over the surface of the planet (this time very close - at a distance of only 300 km) and again transmitted many photographs to Earth. But no new details were noticed this time.
Mariner 10 returns to Mercury every two years. Recall that two Mercury years are exactly equal to three days on Mercury. So every time Mariner 10 returns to Mercury, the planet has time to turn on its axis exactly three times. It means that during each flight of the apparatus past the planet, the same craters and plains are turned to the Sun, so that the view of the planet essentially does not change with each flyby.
Mariner 10 surveyed half of the planet. After the third flyby, there was no longer enough fuel left to keep the spacecraft from random tumbling. But Mariner 10 continues to return to Mercury every 176 days. And every time, after two Mercurian years, the same craters, plains and basins appear before unseeing mechanical eyes when the spacecraft moves helplessly along its eternal orbit.

Thus, it was enough for Mercury to “simply” be in the right orbit, and “get” the necessary rotation - so that then this “double resonant orbit” would be supported by the Sun. Another thing is that by itself, this orbit fits perfectly into the Titius-Bode rule. This is where it gets really uncomfortable.

A photo Marov M.Ya. "Planets of the Solar System", p. 46. The most important in the following discussions will be the question of whether the "suspicious" bodies of the solar system are subjected to changes in the parameters of their movement "just like that" or for any purpose? For now, I'll leave the planet alone. I suppose that the functionality of Venus, Earth and Mars was originally associated with the introduction of life spores on them. And the giant planets were the direct "engine" of the ancient "Artifact Mechanism". I believe that satellites and "anomalous" asteroids also have a certain functionality. It is absolutely inexpedient to move gigantic boulders to jewelry-calibrated orbits “just like that”. Consider the common features of "suspicious" satellites: Regular circular orbits, often exactly in the plane of the planet's equator; Equality of the period of revolution of the satellite around the planet to the period of its rotation around its axis; Abnormally low density or other facts indicating the presence of significant internal cavities. The presence of such voids on the Moon (which, by the way, has a high density) is evidenced by the unusual phenomenon of “seismic ringing”. The first position among such satellites is, of course, Phobos, which is unanimously considered a "captured" asteroid. Low density and internal cavities of Phobos and asteroids The fact that many studied celestial bodies have a “suspiciously” low density was written by many. But the example of Phobos can most clearly show the presence of significant internal cavities. Fact one. Phobos density - less than 2 g/cm 3 . Planetologists attribute this to the loose or porous material that forms its rocks. « The average density of Phobos is 1.90±0.08 g/cm 3 , and the main contribution to the error of its estimation is made by the error of volume estimation. The Phobos density value accepted so far, determined from the data of navigational measurements of the Viking AMS, which were obtained in less favorable ballistic conditions, was 2.2 ± 0.2 g/cm 3 (Williams et al., 1988) . The corrected average density of Phobos is significantly lower than the density of the least dense carbonaceous chondrites, such as hydrated chondrites of the CI type (2.2-2.4 g/cm 3 ) and CM (2.6-2.9 g/cm 3 ). It is also much lower than the density of other spectral analogues of Phobos matter - black chondrites (3.3-3.8 g / cm 3) (Wasson, 1974) . To eliminate this contradiction, it is necessary to assume a significant porosity of the Phobos substance (10-30% in the case of low-density carbonaceous chondrites and 40-50% for black chondrites) or the presence of a light component in Phobos, for example, ice. The required porosity of carbonaceous chondrites corresponds to the porosity of some meteoritic breccias - 10-24% (Wasson, 1974) , as well as breccias of lunar regolith - 30% or more (McKay et al., 1986) . These materials are strong enough to withstand the tidal stresses in Phobos' body. On the other hand, the required porosity value for black chondrites seems unrealistic ». (Collection "Television studies of Phobos" "Science", 1994). Fact two. "A tiny satellite of Mars - Phobos - has the same powerful magnetic field as the Earth . According to the director of the Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism and Radio Wave Propagation of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IZMIRAN) Viktor Oraevsky, this discovery was helped by a “happy accident”. Back in March 1989, one of the Soviet spacecraft sent to study it, Phobos-2, flew to the satellite of Mars. The device went into Phobos orbit and for four days carried out individual measurements according to the plan of the Mission Control Center. However, before the start of the scientific program, the satellite went out of control, and the transmitted data "settled" in the MCC archive as not of scientific value. Only 13 years later, IZMIRAN employees set out to try to use the data that Phobos-2 managed to transmit, and obtained unique results. It turned out that the satellite of Mars, which has a diameter of only 22 km, has the same powerful magnetic field as our planet . According to Russian scientists, this may indicate that Phobos consists of more than a third of magnetic matter and in this sense is the only one in the solar system ». (

According to the existing theory of the formation of stars and planets, planets are formed from the same building material as the stars in which they enter. Therefore, the direction of their orbits coincides with the rotation of stars. So it was considered until 2008, until several astronomical groups from different countries at once, with a difference of one day, discovered two planets moving in orbit in the direction opposite to the rotation of the stars - the central luminaries.
The first discovery took place as part of the WASP (Wide Area Search for Planets) project, in which all the largest scientific institutions in the UK took part. The planet, dubbed WASP-17 b, is located in a star system about 1,000 light-years from Earth.
Previously, three planets had already been found there, moving more or less correctly relative to the central star. However, the fourth planet of the system - WASP-17b - does not obey the general rule and rotates in the opposite direction in an orbit located at an angle of 150 degrees to the plane of motion of other planets.
WASP-17b is a gas giant, half the weight of Jupiter, but twice the diameter of the planet. The planet is located 11 million kilometers from the star - this distance is eight times less than between Mercury and the Sun. And WASP-17b makes a complete revolution around the star in 3.7 days.
The second discovery was made in the HAT-P-7 system, well studied by astronomers. The discovered planet also rotates in the opposite direction around this star. Two groups of astronomers at once - observers from the American Massachusetts Institute of Technology and scientists from the Japanese National Observatory - reported this discovery with a difference of several minutes. And less than 23 hours after WASP-17b's strange orbit was discovered.
Based on the collected data, scientists are trying to determine the reasons for such a strange behavior of the planets. They are not the only ones in their systems, so the planetary collision hypothesis is considered the most popular.
According to it, a change in the direction of rotation of the planets occurred as a result of their collision with the neighboring planets, while the initial speed of the bodies was relatively low, which made it possible to overcome inertia. The Geneva Observatory, which specializes in the study of the gravitational fields of space bodies, took up the verification of this assumption.
Other hypotheses are put forward. One of them says that the discovered "wrong" planets originated in other star systems, and got into the orbit of their current stars as a result of a long interstellar "journey". This means that the planet is twisted in the same direction as its parent star, the authors of the theory say.
Finally, there is a hypothesis about the features of the formation of stellar systems. Some astronomers suggest that the reverse direction of rotation of the planets occurs as a vortex in the stellar disk in the early stages of the formation of the system.
A single disk-shaped cloud of stellar gas appears immediately after the explosion of a supernova. This object consists of "building material" - plasma and particles of matter, which subsequently form stars and planets.
The vortices arising in the stellar disk can be caused both by various external factors (the invasion of a foreign body or the influence of extraneous gravitational fields), and by little-studied features of the physics of stellar gas. This theory also needs to be tested.

Source: http://www.pravda.ru

My comment: "Other hypotheses are also put forward... there is a hypothesis about the peculiarities of the formation of stellar systems...". And why not put forward a hypothesis that the existing theory of the formation of stellar systems, stars and planets from " a single disk-shaped cloud of stellar gas that appears immediately after a supernova explosion"not correct?
The reverse rotation of the planets is not such a rare phenomenon. According to American, Indian, Chinese and other traditions, it used to be characteristic of both the Earth and Venus. From the analysis of these legends, we can conclude that there are two possible reasons for the change in the direction of the planets both around the Sun (in the case of the Earth and Venus) and around their axis:
1) the capture by the Sun of celestial bodies formed in other places of the solar system or even in other star systems and "set off on a free roam" as a result of some catastrophes on a cosmic scale;
2) collision of planets with large asteroids and with each other.
Both of these hypotheses were put forward by scientists in connection with the discovery of planets rotating in the opposite direction, though within the framework of the existing concept of the formation of star systems, stars and planets.
The possibility of changing the direction of rotation of the planets around the luminaries (the Sun) and their axis as a result of their collision with each other and collision with asteroids confirms the assumption made by me and a number of other researchers about the change in the position of the earth's axis that repeatedly occurred in the past as a result of the collision of asteroids with the Earth (option -

Our planet is in constant motion. Together with the Sun, it moves in space around the center of the Galaxy. And that, in turn, moves in the universe. But the most important thing for all living things is the rotation of the Earth around the Sun and its own axis. Without this movement, the conditions on the planet would be unsuitable for sustaining life.

solar system

Earth as a planet of the solar system, according to scientists, was formed more than 4.5 billion years ago. During this time, the distance from the sun practically did not change. The speed of the planet and the gravitational pull of the sun balance its orbit. It is not perfectly round, but stable. If the force of attraction of the star were stronger or the speed of the Earth decreased noticeably, then it would fall on the Sun. Otherwise, sooner or later it would fly into space, ceasing to be part of the system.

The distance from the Sun to the Earth makes it possible to maintain the optimum temperature on its surface. The atmosphere also plays an important role in this. As the Earth rotates around the Sun, the seasons change. Nature has adapted to such cycles. But if our planet were further away, then the temperature on it would become negative. If it were closer, all the water would evaporate, since the thermometer would exceed the boiling point.

The path of a planet around a star is called an orbit. The trajectory of this flight is not perfectly round. It has an ellipse. The maximum difference is 5 million km. The closest point of the orbit to the Sun is at a distance of 147 km. It's called perihelion. Its land passes in January. In July, the planet is at its maximum distance from the star. The greatest distance is 152 million km. This point is called aphelion.

The rotation of the Earth around its axis and the Sun provides, respectively, a change in daily regimes and annual periods.

For a person, the movement of the planet around the center of the system is imperceptible. This is because the mass of the Earth is enormous. Nevertheless, every second we fly through space about 30 km. It seems unrealistic, but such are the calculations. On average, it is believed that the Earth is located at a distance of about 150 million km from the Sun. It makes one complete revolution around the star in 365 days. The distance traveled in a year is almost a billion kilometers.

The exact distance that our planet travels in a year, moving around the sun, is 942 million km. Together with her, we move in space in an elliptical orbit at a speed of 107,000 km / h. The direction of rotation is from west to east, that is, counterclockwise.

The planet does not complete a complete revolution in exactly 365 days, as is commonly believed. It still takes about six hours. But for the convenience of chronology, this time is taken into account in total for 4 years. As a result, one additional day “runs in”, it is added in February. Such a year is considered a leap year.

The speed of rotation of the Earth around the Sun is not constant. It has deviations from the mean. This is due to the elliptical orbit. The difference between the values ​​is most pronounced at the points of perihelion and aphelion and is 1 km/sec. These changes are imperceptible, since we and all the objects around us move in the same coordinate system.

change of seasons

The rotation of the Earth around the Sun and the tilt of the planet's axis make it possible for the seasons to change. It is less noticeable at the equator. But closer to the poles, the annual cyclicity is more pronounced. The northern and southern hemispheres of the planet are heated by the energy of the Sun unevenly.

Moving around the star, they pass four conditional points of the orbit. At the same time, twice in turn during the semi-annual cycle, they turn out to be further or closer to it (in December and June - the days of the solstices). Accordingly, in a place where the surface of the planet warms up better, the ambient temperature is higher there. The period in such a territory is usually called summer. In the other hemisphere at this time it is noticeably colder - it is winter there.

After three months of such movement, with a frequency of six months, the planetary axis is located in such a way that both hemispheres are in the same conditions for heating. At this time (in March and September - the days of the equinox) the temperature regimes are approximately equal. Then, depending on the hemisphere, autumn and spring come.

earth axis

Our planet is a spinning ball. Its movement is carried out around a conditional axis and occurs according to the principle of a top. Leaning with the base in the plane in the untwisted state, it will maintain balance. When the speed of rotation weakens, the top falls.

The earth has no stop. The forces of attraction of the Sun, the Moon and other objects of the system and the Universe act on the planet. Nevertheless, it maintains a constant position in space. The speed of its rotation, obtained during the formation of the nucleus, is sufficient to maintain relative equilibrium.

The earth's axis passes through the planet's ball is not perpendicular. It is inclined at an angle of 66°33´. The rotation of the Earth on its axis and the Sun makes it possible to change the seasons of the year. The planet would "tumble" in space if it did not have a strict orientation. There would be no question of any constancy of environmental conditions and life processes on its surface.

Axial rotation of the Earth

The rotation of the Earth around the Sun (one revolution) occurs during the year. During the day it alternates between day and night. If you look at the Earth's North Pole from space, you can see how it rotates counterclockwise. It completes a full rotation in about 24 hours. This period is called a day.

The speed of rotation determines the speed of the change of day and night. In one hour, the planet rotates approximately 15 degrees. The speed of rotation at different points on its surface is different. This is due to the fact that it has a spherical shape. At the equator, the linear speed is 1669 km / h, or 464 m / s. Closer to the poles, this figure decreases. At the thirtieth latitude, the linear speed will already be 1445 km / h (400 m / s).

Due to axial rotation, the planet has a slightly compressed shape from the poles. Also, this movement "forces" moving objects (including air and water flows) to deviate from the original direction (Coriolis force). Another important consequence of this rotation is the ebbs and flows.

the change of night and day

A spherical object with the only light source at a certain moment is only half illuminated. In relation to our planet in one part of it at this moment there will be a day. The unlit part will be hidden from the Sun - there is night. Axial rotation makes it possible to change these periods.

In addition to the light regime, the conditions for heating the surface of the planet with the energy of the luminary change. This cycle is important. The speed of change of light and thermal regimes is carried out relatively quickly. In 24 hours, the surface does not have time to either overheat or cool below the optimum.

The rotation of the Earth around the Sun and its axis with a relatively constant speed is of decisive importance for the animal world. Without the constancy of the orbit, the planet would not have stayed in the zone of optimal heating. Without axial rotation, day and night would last for six months. Neither one nor the other would contribute to the origin and preservation of life.

Uneven rotation

Mankind has become accustomed to the fact that the change of day and night occurs constantly. This served as a kind of standard of time and a symbol of the uniformity of life processes. The period of rotation of the Earth around the Sun to a certain extent is influenced by the ellipse of the orbit and other planets of the system.

Another feature is the change in the length of the day. The axial rotation of the Earth is uneven. There are several main reasons. Seasonal fluctuations associated with the dynamics of the atmosphere and the distribution of precipitation are important. In addition, the tidal wave, directed against the motion of the planet, constantly slows it down. This figure is negligible (for 40 thousand years for 1 second). But over 1 billion years, under the influence of this, the length of the day increased by 7 hours (from 17 to 24).

The consequences of the Earth's rotation around the Sun and its axis are being studied. These studies are of great practical and scientific importance. They are used not only to accurately determine stellar coordinates, but also to identify patterns that can affect human life processes and natural phenomena in hydrometeorology and other fields.

uncle_Serg

"Catastrophic" craters without planetary explosions
The constant use of the combination"catastrophic craters" could give the false impression that I am a supporter of the theory of "planetary explosions" in ancient times (including the hypothesis of the death of the planet Phaethon). So, my associate Nikkro wrote the following:
“But generally speaking, the Artifact Gear did not really stand on ceremony with the planets, and with satellites too, just look at the photos of the largest impact craters. Everything was at the breaking point of the planets, a little more, and they could have shattered into pieces (like the hypothetical planet Phaethon). In any case, as follows from this, the most important task of the Mechanism was the task of "polishing" the orbits of the celestial bodies of the solar system, and the damage caused by it was not taken into account.
For example, Venus and Mars have changed a lot as a result of these operations, and, from my point of view, not for the better. It’s good that the Earth is more fortunate in this regard.”(Note: "Artifact Gear" is what Nikkro and I call the ancient mechanism of planetary formation.)
I put the word "catastrophic" in the meaning of "destructive, extremely strongly influenced the state of the surface." Many impact craters do look like classic impact craters, with a pronounced single annular ridge with a hill in the center. But I never believed that such a collision is the result of explosions of planets in the solar system, followed by a "chaotic" fall of fragments on planets and satellites.
Purely theoretically, there is nothing “criminal” in the hypothesis of planetary explosions. But when researchers savor the “planetary billiards” and describe in detail how the explosion of a particular planet (for example, Phaethon) becomes a real shock for the entire solar system, I cannot agree with such an interpretation.
When bodies of gigantic masses collide, in addition to damage to the surface (there is no point in denying them - they are clearly visible in photographs), the angular momentum of the planet (satellite, asteroid) must also change.

Mercury was recognized as a space donor

“Mercury could have been noticeably larger before some of its matter “falled out” on Earth and Venus after collision with a large celestial body, suggest employees of the University of Bern. They tested the hypothetical scenario using computer simulations and found that the collision should have involved "Protomercury", whose mass was 2.25 times the mass of the current planet, and "planetesimal", that is, a giant asteroid, half the size of modern Mercury. This is reported by the site "Details".

The hypothesis was supposed to explain the anomalous density of Mercury: it is known that it is noticeably greater than that of other "solid" planets, which implies that the heavy metal core is apparently surrounded by a thin mantle and crust. If the "collisional" version is correct, then after the cataclysm, a noticeable part of the substance, consisting mainly of silicates, should have left the planet ...

In Burn, they do not claim that this version is the only possible one, but they hope that probe data will confirm it. As you know, in 2011, the NASA Messenger probe will visit the planet, which will build a map of the distribution of minerals on the planet's surface. (http://itnews.com.ua/21194.html )

“There are huge chasms on the surface of Mercury, some up to hundreds of kilometers long and up to three kilometers deep. One of the biggest features on the surface of Mercury is Kaloris basin. Its diameter is approximately 1300 km. It looks like big pools on the moon. Like moon pools , its appearance may have been caused by a very large collision in the early history of the solar system». http://lenta.ru/articles/2004/08/02/mercury/

“The Caloris Basin is clearly a vast impact formation. At the end of the cratering era, approximately 3-4 billion years ago, huge asteroid - possibly the largest ever to hit the surface of Mercury - hit the planet". Unlike earlier impacts, which only pockmarked Mercury's surface, this violent impact caused the mantle to rupture all the way to the planet's molten interior. From there, a huge mass of lava gushed out and flooded a giant crater. Then the lava froze and hardened, but the "waves" on the sea of ​​molten rock survived forever.
Apparently, the impact that shook the planet and led to the formation of the Caloris Basin had a significant impact on some other areas of Mercury. Diametrically opposite the Caloris Basin(i.e. exactly on the opposite side of the planet from him) there is a wave-like area of ​​​​an unusual type. This territory is covered with thousands of closely spaced blocky hills 0.25- 2 km . It is natural to assume that the powerful seismic waves that arose during the impact that formed the Caloris Basin, having passed through the planet, were focused on its other side. The ground vibrated and shook with such force that thousands of mountains more than a kilometer high rose literally in a matter of seconds. It appears to have been the most catastrophic event in the history of the planet."("Mercury - spacecraft research",http://artefact.aecru.org/wiki/348/86 ). Photo: Caloris pool. Photograph of Mariner 10. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA03102

What do we observe after a series of all these catastrophic collisions? The deviation of Mercury's axis from the perpendicular to the plane of its revolution around the Sun (axial deviation) is 0.1 degrees! Not to mention the surprising resonance mentioned at the beginning of the article:

« The movement of Mercury is coordinated with the movement of the Earth. From time to time, Mercury is in inferior conjunction with the Earth. This is the position when the Earth and Mercury are on the same side of the Sun, lining up with it on the same straight line.

Inferior conjunction repeats every 116 days, which coincides with the time of two full revolutions of Mercury and, meeting with the Earth, Mercury always faces it with the same side. But what kind of force makes Mercury align not with the Sun, but with the Earth. Or is it a coincidence? » (M. Karpenko. "The Universe is reasonable." http://karpenko-maksim.viv.ru/cont/univers/28.html ).

For all the exoticism of the situation, Mercury, “equal to the Earth”, rotates (albeit very slowly), nevertheless, in the same direction as most of the planets of the solar system. For example, Venus would have to rotate also very slow, but reversed. The most amazing thing is that Venus just rotates.

Reverse rotation of Venus

Need an explanation and incomprehensibly anomalous rotation of Venus:

“In the 80s. 19th century Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli found that Venus rotates much more slowly. Then he suggested that the planet faces the Sun on one side, like the Moon to the Earth, and, therefore, its period of rotation is equal to the period of revolution around the Sun - 225 days. The same point of view was expressed in relation to Mercury. But in both cases this conclusion was wrong. Only in the 60s. XX century, the use of radar allowed American and Soviet astronomers to prove that the rotation of Venus is the opposite, that is, it rotates in the opposite direction to the rotation of the Earth, Mars, Jupiter and other planets. In 1970, two groups of American scientists, based on observations for 1962-1969. determined that the period of rotation of Venus is 243 days. The Soviet radiophysicists also acquired a close significance. The rotation around the axis and the orbital motion of the planet determine the apparent movement of the Sun across its sky. Knowing the periods of rotation and circulation, it is easy to calculate the duration of a solar day on Venus. It turns out that they are 117 times longer than the earth, and the Venusian year consists of less than two such days.

Now suppose that we observe Venus in superior conjunction, i.e. when the Sun is between the Earth and Venus. This configuration will be repeated after 585 Earth days: being at other points in their orbits, the planets will occupy the same position relative to each other and the Sun. Exactly five local solar days will pass on Venus during this time (585 = 117 x 5). And that means that it will be turned to the Sun (and, therefore, to the Earth) by the same side as at the time of the previous conjunction. This mutual motion of the planets is called resonant.; it is caused, apparently, by the long-term influence of the Earth's gravitational field on Venus. That is why astronomers of the past and the beginning of this century believed that Venus always faces the Sun on one side. http://planets2001.narod.ru/venvr.html

“The direction of rotation of Venus around its axis is the opposite, that is, opposite to the direction of its rotation around the Sun. For all other planets (excluding Uranus), including our Earth, the direction of rotation is direct, that is, it coincides with the direction of rotation of the planet around the Sun ...
It is interesting to note that the period of rotation of Venus is very close to the period of the so-called resonant rotation of the planet relative to the Earth, equal to 243.16 Earth days. In a resonant rotation between each inferior and superior conjunction, Venus makes exactly one revolution relative to the Earth, and therefore, at the conjunction, it faces the Earth with the same side. (A.D. Kuzmin. "Planet Venus", p. 38).Venuswell, no way could not form from a protoplanetary cloud, having a reverse rotation, - therefore, it changed the direction of rotation later . This is not to say that scientists did not try to come up with anything to explain this phenomenon. But their models turned out to be confusing and contradictory:
“Based on a systematic analysis of the facts relating to this issue, we state that the orientation of Venus to the Earth is always the same side in the era of inferior conjunction, as well as its retrograde rotation are a consequence of the law of gravity acting between the Earth and "the displacement of the center of the figure of Venus relative to the center of mass by 1.5 km in the direction of the Earth" ”. http://muz1.narod.ru/povenvrobr.htm . «… During the inferior conjunction (i.e., when the distance between Venus and the Earth is minimal), Venus is always turned to the Earth with the same side ...
Mercury also has this feature ... If the slow rotation of Mercury can still be explained by the action of solar tides, then the same explanation for Venus faces significant difficulties... It is hypothesized that Venus was slowed down by Mercury, which was once its satellite ...
Just as in the case of the Earth-Moon system, at the beginning the present two inner planets formed a very close pair with a fast axial rotation. Due to the tides, the distance between the planets increased, and the axial rotation slowed down. When the semi-major axis of the orbit reached approx. 500 thousand km, this pair "broke", i.e. the planets ceased to be gravitationally bound... The rupture of the Earth-Moon pair did not occur due to the relatively small mass of the Moon and greater distance from the Sun. As a trace of these bygone events, a significant eccentricity of Mercury's orbit remained and Common Orientation of Venus and Mercury in Inferior Conjunction. This hypothesis also explains the lack of satellites of Venus and Mercury and the complex surface topography of Venus, which can be explained by the deformation of its crust by powerful tidal forces from the rather massive Mercury. (I. Shklovsky. "The Universe, Life, Mind". 6th ed., 1987, p. 181).“Not so long ago, in the pages of the scientific press, the question of whether Wasn't Mercury a satellite of Venus in the past?, then moving under the influence of the powerful gravitational attraction of the Sun into orbit around it. If Mercury really was a satellite of Venus before, then even earlier it should have moved into the orbit of Venus from an orbit around the Sun, located between the orbits of Venus and the Earth. Having greater relative deceleration than Venus, Mercury could come close to it and move into its orbit, while changing the forward direction of reversal. Mercury could not only stop the slow and direct axial rotation of Venus under the influence of tidal friction, but also make it slowly rotate in the opposite direction. Thus, Mercury automatically changed the direction of its circulation relative to Venus to a direct one, and Venus approached the Sun. As a result of the capture by the Sun, Mercury returned to the near-solar orbit, being ahead of Venus. However, there are a number of issues that need to be resolved. Question one: why was Mercury able to make Venus rotate in the opposite direction, and Charon could not force Pluto to rotate in the opposite direction? After all, the ratio of their masses is approximately the same - 15:1. This question can be answered in some other way, for example, by assuming that Venus had another large moon like the moon which, approaching under the influence of tidal friction(as Phobos and Triton are now approaching their planets) to the surface of Venus, collapsed on it and, transferring its angular momentum to Venus, made it rotate in the opposite direction, since this hypothetical satellite revolved around Venus in the opposite direction.
But a second, more serious question arises: if Mercury was a satellite of Venus, it should not have moved away from Venus, like the Moon from the Earth, but approached it, since, firstly, Venus rotates slowly and its period of rotation would be less than the period of revolution Mercury, secondly, Venus rotates in the opposite direction. However, here too one can find the answer, for example, assuming that the second satellite, having fallen on the surface of Venus, caused it to rotate rapidly in the opposite direction, so that the period of rotation of Venus became less than the period of revolution of Mercury, which, as a result, began to move away from it faster and, having gone beyond the sphere of influence of Venus, passed into a near-solar orbit ... " (M.V. Grusha. Abstract "The Origin and Development of the Solar System"). http://artefact.aecru.org/wiki/348/81

Little convincing. And yet, again and again, scientists resort to their favorite “catastrophic” scenarios:

“A long-known phenomenon - the absence of a natural satellite on the planet Venus, is explained in their own way by young scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). “The model presented last Monday at the Division for Planetary Sciences conference in Pasadena by Alex Alemi and Caltech fellow David Stevenson suggests that Venus once had a moon, but it broke apart. In the solar system there is another planet without a satellite - Mercury (once a version was put forward that he was the former satellite of Venus). And he, like Venus, rotates slowly, and this fact, as well as the absence of a magnetic field in Venus and the extremely weak magnetic field of Mercury, were considered the main explanation for the mysterious phenomenon that Californian planetologists paid attention to. Venus makes a full rotation around its axis in 243 Earth days, but, according to the authors of the model, this is not the only thing. Unlike the Earth and other planets, Venus rotates clockwise when viewed from the planet's north pole. And this may be evidence that she underwent not one, but two strong collisions - the first knocked the satellite out of her, and this satellite, which was knocked out earlier, suffered from the second.
According to Alemi and Stevenson, from the first blow, Venus spun counterclockwise, and the piece knocked out of it became a satellite, just as our Moon was formed from the collision of the Earth with a celestial body the size of Mars. The second blow returned everything to its place, and Venus began to spin clockwise, as it is now.. However, at the same time, solar gravity contributed to slowing down the rotation of Venus and even to reversing the direction of its movement. This reversal, in turn, affected the gravitational interactions between the satellite and the planet, as a result of which the satellite began to move, as it were, inward, i.e. approach the planet with an inevitable collision with it. From the second collision, too, a satellite may or may not have arisen, notes the Scientific American.com news feed that reported the Alemi-Stevenson model. And this hypothetical satellite, if it arose, could be blown to pieces by the first satellite falling on the planet. According to Stevenson, their model can be tested by looking at the isotopic traces in the Venusian rock - their exoticism can be regarded as evidence of a collision with a foreign celestial body. ("Why Doesn't Venus Have a Moon?"http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/4353026.html ).

It is clear why the authors of the hypothesis needed such a complex scenario. Indeed, the first impact must have caused Venus to rotate erratically, and only the second "impact" was able to give it its current rotation. Another thing is that in order to achieve resonance with the Earth, the force, direction and angle of impacts had to be calculated so accurately that Alemi and Stevenson rest. How "filigree" tuning of the resonant rotation of Venus relative to the Earth is possible, based on random factors - judge for yourself.

No matter what cataclysms and “planetary explosions” shook the solar system in the past, I want to state that without careful and subtle adjustment at the same time, two planets of the solar system (Venus and Mercury) will not “tune in” in any way. And the fact that such an adjustment is carried out by a powerful and, most importantly, reasonable force is obvious to me.

As for the practically "zero" axial deviation of Mercury, it led to a very interesting result.

Unusually high reflection of radio waves by the polar regions of Mercury

"Sounding of Mercury by radar from the Earth showed unusually high reflection of radio waves by the polar regions of Mercury. What is it, ice, as the popular explanation says? No one knows.
But where does the ice come from on the planet closest to the Sun, where during the day at the equator the temperature reaches 400 degrees Celsius? The fact is that in the region of the poles, in craters where the sun's rays never reach the temperature - 200. And there could well have been preserved ice brought by comets. (skyer.ru/planets/mercury/articles/mercury_transit.htm).

“Radar studies of the circumpolar regions of the planet showed the presence of a substance that strongly reflects radio waves, the most likely candidate for which is ordinary water ice. Entering the surface of Mercury when comets hit it, the water evaporates and travels around the planet until it freezes in the polar regions at the bottom of deep craters, where the Sun never looks, and where ice can remain almost indefinitely. (“Mercury. Physical characteristics.” athens.kiev.ua/pages/solarsystem/korchinskiy/Mercuri/m%20fh.htm).

“It would seem that talking about the possibility of the existence of ice on Mercury is at least absurd. But in 1992, during radar observations from the Earth near the north and south poles of the planet, areas were first discovered that reflect radio waves very strongly. It was these data that were interpreted as evidence of the presence of ice in the near-surface Mercury layer. Radar made from the Arecibo radio observatory located on the island of Puerto Rico, as well as from the NASA Deep Space Communications Center in Goldstone (California), revealed about 20 round spots with a diameter of several tens of kilometers, with increased radio reflection. Presumably, these are craters, in which, due to their proximity to the poles of the planet, the sun's rays fall only in passing or do not fall at all. Such craters, called permanently shadowed, are also found on the Moon, and measurements from satellites revealed the presence of a certain amount of water ice in them. Calculations have shown that in the depressions of permanently shaded craters near the poles of Mercury it can be cold enough (-175 ° C) for ice to exist there for a long time. Even in flat areas near the poles, the calculated daily temperature does not exceed –105°C. Direct measurements of the surface temperature of the polar regions of the planet are still not available.

Despite observations and calculations, the existence of ice on the surface of Mercury or at a shallow depth below it has not yet received unambiguous evidence, since stone rocks containing compounds of metals with sulfur also have increased radio reflection, and possible metal condensates on the surface of the planet, for example, sodium ions, which settled on it as a result of the constant “bombardment” of Mercury by particles of the solar wind.

But here the question arises: why is the distribution of areas that strongly reflect radio signals precisely confined to the polar regions of Mercury? Maybe the rest of the territory is protected from the solar wind by the planet's magnetic field? Hopes for clarifying the mystery of ice in the realm of heat are associated only with the flight to Mercury of new automatic space stations equipped with measuring instruments that allow determining the chemical composition of the planet's surface. (“Around the World”, No. 12 (2759), December 2003. vokrugsveta.ru/publishing/vs/archives/?i tem_id=625). Photo of the south pole of Mercury. Photograph of Mariner 10. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02941

It's not even the fact of the existence of ice. Obviously, the poles of Mercury are an ideal place for the possible basing of artifacts that are sensitive to high temperatures. If ice has been preserved on the planet for many millions of years, then could not the active elements of the “Artifact Mechanism” remain there.

I think that's what it's about one of the reasons painful for Mercury "polishing" of its orbit by the ancient mechanism of planet formation. If the axial deviation of the planet exceeded 0.1 degrees, seasonal temperature fluctuations in the reserved areas of Mercury would be inevitable, and the "reserved zones" could not be preserved for millions of years. No other planet in the solar system has such a strict perpendicular to the axis of rotation to the plane of the orbit. Think, it is at the poles of Mercury that you can find the active elements of the “Artifact Mechanism”. It was not in vain that the authors of an article in the journal Vokrug Sveta pointed out that not only ice, but also metal has increased radio reflection. Well, let's wait until 2011 for answers.

Second reason changes in the orbit of Mercury, like that of Venus, was earth orientation in inferior conjunction. It would be interesting to know what details of the relief are in the center of the disk of these planets during the lower conjunction with the Earth. Perhaps these objects hide the artifacts of the Forerunners (the conventional name for the creators of the ancient mechanism for the formation of planets), left by them in antiquity to observe (perhaps not only) the Earth.
("The Mechanism of Artificial Intervention in the Formation of the Solar System". Internet Research Results "An artifact called the Solar System",http://artefact.aecr u.org/wiki/393/116 ). Photo of Venus. http://www.solarviews.com/browse/venus/venus2.jpg

Light streaks around the South Pole of Mercury

"A field of bright rays-created by ejecta from a crater-radiating to the north (top) from off camera (lower right) is seen in this view of Mercury taken 1975, September 21 by "Mariner 10".Source of the rays is a large new crater to the south, near Mercury's South Field. "Mariner 10" was about 48,000 kilometers (30,000 miles) from Mercury when the picture (FDS 166749) was taken at 2:01 p.m. PDT, just three minutes after the spacecraft was closest to the planet. Largest crater in this picture is 100 kilometers (62 miles) in diameter".

Change language

We have been studying the solar system for hundreds of years, and one would assume that we have the answers to all the frequently asked questions about it. Why the planets rotate, why they are in such orbits, why the Moon does not fall to the Earth… But we cannot boast of this. To see this, just look at our neighbor, Venus.

Scientists began to study it closely in the middle of the last century, and at first it seemed relatively dull and of little interest. However, it soon became clear that this is the most natural hell with acid rain, which also rotates in the opposite direction! More than half a century has passed since then. We've learned a lot about Venus's climate, but we still haven't been able to figure out why it doesn't spin like everyone else. Although there are many hypotheses in this regard.

In astronomy, rotation in the opposite direction is called retrograde. Since the entire solar system was formed from one rotating gas cloud, all the planets move in orbits in the same direction - counterclockwise, if you look at this whole picture from above, from the north pole of the Earth. In addition, these celestial bodies also rotate around their own axis - also counterclockwise. But this does not apply to the two planets of our system - Venus and Uranus.

Uranus is actually lying on its side, most likely due to a couple of collisions with large objects. Venus, on the other hand, rotates clockwise, and explaining this is even more problematic. One of the early hypotheses suggested that Venus collided with an asteroid, and the impact was so strong that the planet began to spin in the opposite direction. This theory was thrown into the discussion of the interested public in 1965 by two astronomers who processed radar data. Moreover, the definition of “thrown in” is by no means a humiliation. As the scientists themselves stated, the quote: “This possibility is dictated only by the imagination. It is hardly possible to obtain evidence confirming it.” Extremely convincing, isn't it? Be that as it may, this hypothesis does not stand up to the test of simple mathematics - it turns out that an object whose size is sufficient to reverse the rotation of Venus will simply destroy the planet. Its kinetic energy will be 10,000 times more than what it takes to smash the planet to dust. In this regard, the hypothesis was sent to the distant shelves of scientific libraries.

It was replaced by several theories based on some evidence base. One of the most popular, proposed in 1970, suggested that Venus originally rotated in this way. It just turned upside down at some point in its history! This could be due to the processes that took place inside Venus and in its atmosphere.

This planet, like the Earth, is multi-layered. Here, too, there is a core, mantle and crust. During the rotation of the planet, the core and mantle experience friction in the area of ​​​​their contact. The atmosphere of Venus is very thick, and, thanks to the heat and attraction of the Sun, it is subjected, like the rest of the planet, to the tidal influence of our luminary. According to the described hypothesis, the friction of the crust with the mantle, coupled with atmospheric tidal oscillations, created a torque, and Venus, having lost stability, capsized. The simulations performed showed that this could only happen if Venus had an axial tilt of about 90 degrees since its formation. Later this number decreased somewhat. In any case, this is a highly unusual hypothesis. Just imagine - a tumbling planet! This is some kind of circus, not space.

In 1964, a hypothesis was put forward, according to which Venus changed its rotation gradually - it slowed down, stopped, and began to spin in the other direction. This could be triggered by several factors, including interactions with the Sun's magnetic field, atmospheric tides, or a combination of several forces. The atmosphere of Venus, according to this theory, spun in the opposite direction of the first. This created a force that first slowed Venus and then spun it retrograde. As a bonus, this hypothesis also explains the long duration of the day on the planet.

In the dispute between the last two explanations, there is no clear favorite yet. To understand which one to prefer, we need to know much more about the dynamics of early Venus, in particular about its rotation rate and axial tilt. According to an article published in 2001 in the journal Nature, Venus is more likely to tip over if it has a higher initial rotational speed. But, if it was less than one revolution in 96 hours with a slight axial tilt (less than 70 degrees), the second hypothesis looks more plausible. Unfortunately, it is quite difficult for scientists to look into the past four billion years. Therefore, until we invent a time machine or run unrealistically high-quality computer simulations today, progress in this matter is not expected.

It is clear that this is not a complete description of the discussion regarding the rotation of Venus. So, for example, the very first of the hypotheses we described, the one that comes from 1965, received an unexpected development not so long ago. In 2008, it was suggested that our neighbor could spin in the opposite direction at a time when she was still a small unintelligent planetesimal. An object about the same size as Venus itself should have crashed into it. Instead of the destruction of Venus, the merging of two celestial bodies into one full-fledged planet would follow. The main difference from the original hypothesis here is that scientists may have evidence in favor of this turn of the situation.

Based on what we know about the topography of Venus, there is very little water on it. Compared to Earth, of course. Moisture could disappear from there as a result of a catastrophic collision of cosmic bodies. That is, this hypothesis would also explain the dryness of Venus. Although there are also, no matter how ironic it may sound in this case, pitfalls. Water from the surface of the planet could simply evaporate under the rays of the Sun, which is hot here. To clarify this issue, a mineralogical analysis of rocks from the surface of Venus is needed. If water is present in them, the hypothesis of an early collision will disappear. The problem is that such analyzes have not yet been carried out. Venus is extremely unfriendly to the robots that we send to her. Destroys without any hesitation.

Be that as it may, building an interplanetary station with a rover capable of working here is still easier than a time machine. So let's not lose hope. Perhaps humanity will receive an answer to the riddle about the "wrong" rotation of Venus even during our lifetime.