Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to re: The flares could themselves result in "seasons" on such a planet.

Interesting...
nick hoffman — (archived)

I hadn't thought this through myself, but now you've mentioned it, it seems quite interesting. If the frequency of flares changes on a "relevant" time period - "relevant" is measured in terms of the atmospheric and orbital response of the planet - then a mass redistribution will occur between the "dark" and "bright" sides of the planet, and lead to an orbital torque.

This has analogues in the changes of rotation rate (day-length) of Mars in response to the winter build-up of its snowpack (and probably on Earth, too, but I haven't seen equivalent data).

Similarly; orbital, seasonal, solar, and atmospheric interactions seem to be responsible for "Climate change" on Earth, including our Ice Ages.

I doubt that the changes in "day" vs "year" on a tidally-locked planet close to a red dwarf would be sufficient to actually turn the planet round, but they could produce an effect similar to the libration of our Moon and bring light to areas near the terminator that would otherwise be in twilight.

Of course, with an atmosphere (required to enable the icecap that causes this scenario), then twilight is reasonably extensive due to atmospheric refraction, so the "value" of the libration is much less than on an body in vacuum.

But again, if there is an atmosphere, this increases the chance of life on that planet so the "effect" of the libration becomes much more!

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