How about a gas giant like Saturn, I read there's practically no magnetosphere there but could a giant like Saturn survive in where we are?
Jupiter radiates more energy than it receives, could there be a balance point where it's far enough out where the solar particles accelerator is low enough not to fry any atmosphere but the combined heat from the gas giant and the sun would work? I mean the transit through the shadow on the dark side would be bitchingly cold but would only last a short time. Bah it'd still be tidally locked so only one side would benefit from the Jovian heat...
Derek Stanley
Sent from my iPad
> On May 3, 2014, at 11:22 PM, <> wrote:
>
> Except for the fact that it would be tidelocked at any reasonable distance from the gas giant. Problem - to have an earth-sized moon, you need a massive gas giant (about 5-10 jupiter masses). More massive gas giants tend to have very strong magnetic fields. Strong magnetic fields close to stars (i.e. in the habitable zone) trap and accelerate lots more solar wind particles than in gas giants further away (so if Jupiter is bad, a more massive jovian closer to the star should be worse). Maybe an earth-sized rocky/metallic moon could generate a strong enough magnetic field to keep those charged particles at bay, but it's going to be a struggle.
>
> If we put the moon further away then we have more chance of being outside the magnetic field. But there's only so far you can move the moon out before it gets into unstable orbits because the Hill Sphere (the sphere of influence) of the superjovian is going to be pretty small that close to the star. But i f we can put the moon outside the jovian's magnetosphere, we run into another issue - it's still (probably) going to be tidelocked to the planet, and being further away that means that it's day (relative to the sun) is going to be more like a week or two long. Also, solar tides could mess with that (I'm not sure if they can or not - but the interplay between planetary and solar tides at that distance may mean that the moon gets into a weird resonance which could make the rotation period even longer, like one rotation every three orbits or something).
>
>
> So the upshot is... it's pretty complicated ;).
>
Jupiter radiates more energy than it receives, could there be a balance point where it's far enough out where the solar particles accelerator is low enough not to fry any atmosphere but the combined heat from the gas giant and the sun would work? I mean the transit through the shadow on the dark side would be bitchingly cold but would only last a short time. Bah it'd still be tidally locked so only one side would benefit from the Jovian heat...
Derek Stanley
Sent from my iPad
> On May 3, 2014, at 11:22 PM, <> wrote:
>
> Except for the fact that it would be tidelocked at any reasonable distance from the gas giant. Problem - to have an earth-sized moon, you need a massive gas giant (about 5-10 jupiter masses). More massive gas giants tend to have very strong magnetic fields. Strong magnetic fields close to stars (i.e. in the habitable zone) trap and accelerate lots more solar wind particles than in gas giants further away (so if Jupiter is bad, a more massive jovian closer to the star should be worse). Maybe an earth-sized rocky/metallic moon could generate a strong enough magnetic field to keep those charged particles at bay, but it's going to be a struggle.
>
> If we put the moon further away then we have more chance of being outside the magnetic field. But there's only so far you can move the moon out before it gets into unstable orbits because the Hill Sphere (the sphere of influence) of the superjovian is going to be pretty small that close to the star. But i f we can put the moon outside the jovian's magnetosphere, we run into another issue - it's still (probably) going to be tidelocked to the planet, and being further away that means that it's day (relative to the sun) is going to be more like a week or two long. Also, solar tides could mess with that (I'm not sure if they can or not - but the interplay between planetary and solar tides at that distance may mean that the moon gets into a weird resonance which could make the rotation period even longer, like one rotation every three orbits or something).
>
>
> So the upshot is... it's pretty complicated ;).
>