The Tethered Moon

Abstract

We address the thermal history of the Earth after the Moon-forming impact, taking tidal heating and thermal blanketing by the atmosphere into account. The atmosphere sets an upper bound of ~100 W/m^2 on how quickly the Earth can cool. The liquid magma ocean cools over 2-10 Myrs, with longer times corresponding to high angular-momentum events. Tidal heating is focused mostly in mantle materials that are just beginning to freeze. The atmosphere's control over cooling sets up a negative feedback between viscosity-dependent tidal heating and temperature-dependent viscosity of the magma ocean. While the feedback holds, evolution of the Moon's orbit is limited by the modest radiative cooling rate of Earth's atmosphere. Orbital evolution is orders of magnitude slower than in conventional constant Q models, which promotes capture by resonances. The evection resonance is encountered early, when the Earth is molten. Capture by the evection resonance appears certain but unlikely to generate much eccentricity because it is encountered early when the Earth is molten and Q_Earth >> Q_Moon. Tidal dissipation in the Earth becomes more efficient (Q_Earth << Q_Moon) later when the Moon is between ~20 R_Earth and ~40 R_Earth. If lunar eccentricity grew great, this was when it did so, perhaps setting the table for some other process to leave its mark on the inclination of the Moon.

34 pages, 10 figures, preprint format

References in corpus (3)

• Equilibration in the Aftermath of the Lunar-Forming Giant Impact
• The Atmospheres of Earth-like Planets after Giant Impact Events
• Tidal dissipation in a homogeneous spherical body. II. Three examples: Mercury, Io, and Kepler-10 b

Cited by in corpus (36)

• Tidal Locking of Habitable Exoplanets
• Atmosphere-interior exchange on hot rocky exoplanets
• Habitability of Exoplanet Waterworlds
• Vertically resolved magma ocean-protoatmosphere evolution: H${}_2$, H${}_2$O, CO${}_2$, CH${}_4$, CO, O${}_2$, and N${}_2$ as primary absorbers
• On the Origin of Earth's Moon
• Magma ocean evolution of the TRAPPIST-1 planets
• Spin-orbital tidal dynamics and tidal heating in the TRAPPIST-1 multi-planet system
• Oxygen False Positives on Habitable Zone Planets Around Sun-Like Stars
• Tidal insights into rocky and icy bodies: An introduction and overview
• Collisionless Encounters and the Origin of the Lunar Inclination
• Tidal Evolution of the Evection Resonance/Quasi-Resonance and the Angular Momentum of the Earth-Moon System
• Inefficient water degassing inhibits ocean formation on rocky planets: An insight from self-consistent mantle degassing models
• Implications of tides for life on exoplanets
• The energy budget and figure of Earth during recovery from the Moon-forming giant impact
• A Model of the Primordial Lunar Atmosphere
• Collision Chains among the Terrestrial Planets. III. Formation of the Moon
• Habitability of the early Earth: Liquid water under a faint young Sun facilitated by strong tidal heating due to a closer Moon
• Tidal Dissipation in Dual-Body, Highly Eccentric, and Non-synchronously Rotating Systems: Applications to Pluto-Charon and the Exoplanet TRAPPIST-1e
• Effects of Spin-Orbit Resonances and Tidal Heating on the Inner Edge of the Habitable Zone
• Near/Far Side Asymmetry in the Tidally Heated Moon
• A subsurface magma ocean on Io: Exploring the steady state of partially molten planetary bodies
• The role of multiple giant impacts in the formation of the Earth-Moon system
• Rapid solidification of Earth's magma ocean limits early lunar recession
• System Architecture and Planetary Obliquity: Implications for Long-Term Habitability
• Giant impacts stochastically change the internal pressures of terrestrial planets
• Self-limited tidal heating and prolonged magma oceans in the L 98-59 system
• Analytical Model for the Tidal Evolution of the Evection Resonance and the Timing of Resonance Escape
• The thermal-orbital evolution of the Earth-Moon system with a subsurface magma ocean and fossil figure
• Effect of Equation of State and Cutoff Density in Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics Simulations of the Moon-Forming Giant Impact
• Thermal evolution of the early Moon
• Can tidal evolution lead to close-in planetary bodies around white dwarfs I: Orbital period distribution
• Can tidal evolution lead to close-in planetary bodies around white dwarfs II: volcanism and transits
• Scaling in global tidal dissipation of the Earth-Moon system
• On the evolution of global ocean tides
• From CO${}_2$- to H${}_2$O-dominated atmospheres and back -- How mixed outgassing changes the volatile distribution in magma oceans around M dwarf stars
• The Resonant Tidal Evolution of the Earth-Moon Distance