Re: planetary and atmospheric rotation - origins, direction, etc

On Feb 29, 8:17=A0am, af...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (John Park) wrote:

> how unlikely is it that a moon could be formed--or
> captured--in a orbit so large that the time scale for
> deceleration is comparable to the age of the solar
> system?

Well... that statement is in some form true for nearly every (still)
existing moon in the solar system, right?

> I seem to recall there's at least one retrograde moon among
> the outer planets that's not due to fall any time soon.

Triton, around Neptune. IMS, it's thought to hit the Neptune's Roche
limit in about 2 Ga from now (obviously, *very* roughly). The
timescale for tidal evolution depends a good bit on things like the Q
factor, which is very large for most gaseous planets, so the tidal
evolution of the orbit takes a long time.

--
Brian Davis