269: Chapter 269: The Moon is tidally locked, which makes perfect sense, right?

Xiaoyu was taken aback, "Hmm, how is that possible? How can it be true?"

Even if she didn't know the specifics of orbiting binary stars, just hearing it sounded like a cosmic miracle.

At this moment, countless astronomy fans in the live stream channel were frantically sending barrage comments.

"Bro, have you gone crazy?"

"This famous Three-Body Problem, no one dares to say it's possible!"

"Exactly. This Three-Body Problem is nothing short of a cosmological miracle. So far, no circumbinary planets have been found; however, there are many Three-Body Problems involving stars and planets in the universe..."

"To the person above, I ask because I don't know: since stars and planets can have a Three-Body Problem, and judging by what you say, it seems quite common, why can't planets have it too?"

"This... damn, I can't say why for the moment."

"Then isn't that it?"

"..."

At this time, at the Huaqing University physics dormitory building.

Professor Wu looked at the screen, bewildered, "How can this be true?"

With a serious expression, he muttered to himself and began mental calculations.

"The Moon's mass is 1/81 that of Earth, and Venus's mass is 0.815 times that of Earth. To have the Moon flung out of Venus's orbit and then captured by Earth, while also undergoing a circumbinary phase—"

"First, it would require a celestial body large enough to impact the far side of the Moon and blast it out of Venus's orbit."

"The energy of this impact would need to reach at least the 10^29 Joules level, equivalent to billions of hydrogen bombs exploding simultaneously."

"Second, after being blasted out, the Moon's speed must be precisely within a narrow range; if the Moon is too fast, it will fly straight out of the Solar System, and if it's too slow, it will fall into the Sun or be recaptured by Venus."

"Furthermore, the positions of Earth and Venus at that time must have been just right; the distance between the two planets could not be too far, or the gravitational fields wouldn't reach, and it couldn't be too close, or the Moon would be torn apart."

"Finally, it must satisfy the stability conditions of a circumbinary orbit, including Lagrange points, Hill sphere radii, and orbital resonance, and every single parameter within this must be precise to many decimal places."

After he finished calculating, he stood there, stunned.

"This kind of probability is simply impossibly low!"

Ouyang Baili's mouth curled up slightly, "Why can't it be true?"

Professor Wu turned his head to look at him, "Are you crazy? This probability is lower than winning the lottery jackpot!"

Ouyang Baili said unhurriedly, "There are plenty of things in the universe with lower probabilities than winning the lottery jackpot. There are tons of Three-Body Problems involving stars and planets, so why can't it work for planets?"

Saying this, he pulled out his phone, brought up the information he had just searched for, and showed it to Professor Wu, Li Mo, and Guan Jingming.

"Just in 2023, international astronomy confirmed a system named BEBOP-1, which is about 1300 light-years away from Earth."

"This is a binary system with two stars orbiting each other."

"In this system, at least two planets, BEBOP-1 b and BEBOP-1 c, were discovered orbiting the common center of mass of these two stars. This directly proves that not only do circumbinary planets exist, but multi-planet circumbinary systems also exist."

Having explained this, he looked at Li Mo and Professor Guan's astonished expressions, then turned to look at Professor Wu, who also looked surprised.

"Is the probability of life appearing on Earth high? Is the probability of humans evolving intelligence high? Is the probability of the Solar System just happening to have Jupiter as a guardian high?"

"If you insist that circumbinary orbits are difficult, current astronomical science states that binary systems account for about 1/3 of stellar systems in the universe."

"This means that in the universe, binary systems might actually be the norm!"

Professor Wu shook his head in astonishment, wanting to say something but stopping himself, and finally, he could only nod.

Although the probability he calculated was very low, astronomy has already discovered thousands or tens of thousands of them, and they haven't even deeply explored circumbinary systems yet!

Li Mo added quietly from the side, "So, it really is possible?"

Professor Guan put his arm around Li Mo's shoulder and said nonchalantly, "Of course, it is possible!"

"Hiss~~~"

...

At this moment, on the big screen.

"Of course it is possible!"

Jiang Zhe smiled slightly, picked up his tablet, operated it, and found a black-and-white image from the last century, a photo of the far side of the Moon taken by the former Bear Country.

"In 1959, the Soviet Union's Luna 3 probe captured the first photos of the far side of the Moon. They were also the first country in the world to photograph the far side of the Moon, and later their astronomers were surprised to discover that—"

"The far side of the Moon is completely different from the near side."

On the tablet screen, two photos of the Moon appeared: one of the far side and the other of the near side.

Xiaoyu leaned in to examine them closely. The topographic map of the far side was clearly visible; unlike the flat lunar maria on the near side, the far side was densely covered with craters and lunar highlands, with no large flat areas.

He pointed to the photo of the near side and said, "Look, this is the near side of the Moon, with vast lunar maria, very flat."

He then pointed to the image of the far side of the Moon, "This is the far side of the Moon, densely covered with craters and highlands; to the naked eye, you can barely find any large flat areas here."

Xiaoyu looked at the screen and asked in deep confusion, "How can there be such a big difference? It seems like Earth isn't like this; whether it's the North or South Pole, nothing like this seems to happen."

"Because of tidal locking!" Jiang Zhe smiled slightly, "The near side of the Moon is tidally locked by Earth, always facing Earth with the same side; therefore, the crust on the near side has become relatively flat overall due to the long-term pull of Earth's gravity."

He pointed to the picture of the far side of the Moon.

"But the far side is different; it wasn't pulled by Earth's gravity and has instead retained its original lunar crust structure."

"Moreover, if the Moon was once tidally locked by another planet, the far side would be that eternal scene from when it was locked."

Xiaoyu's eyes lit up, "Venus?"

"Yes." Jiang Zhe's mouth curled slightly, "If the Moon was once Venus's moon and was tidally locked by Venus, then its far side should retain the traces left behind when it was locked by Venus."

He zoomed in on the picture of the far side of the Moon and pointed to a huge depression, "Look at this, the South Pole-Aitken basin on the far side of the Moon, about 2500 kilometers in diameter and about 13 kilometers deep, is one of the largest known impact craters in the Solar System."

"The mountains on the edge of this basin can reach over 8 kilometers at their highest point—Mount Everest is only 8848 meters, you know—and there are a large number of similar terrains on the far side of the Moon."

"This kind of terrain must have formed after a long period of tidal locking."

"Moreover, it must be double tidal locking; if it weren't for double tidal locking, the terrain on the near side and far side of the Moon should be almost identical; but the near side and far side of the Moon are not identical!"

Xiaoyu's beautiful eyes widened, and she couldn't help but gasp, "Double tidal locking?"

At this moment, in the live stream channel, countless barrage comments were rapidly scrolling.

"Double tidal locking, this again?"

"Holy crap, wasn't Mars also double tidally locked before?"

"Mars was locked by two planets, and so is our Moon?"

"So the Moon was once a shared moon of two planets?"

"Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap!"

"This is too amazing!"

"..."

Not only the fans, but even Ren Xiaoyao, Professor Chen Runzhi, Robert, and others were so shocked that their jaws dropped.

Before Jiang Zhe appeared, the five words "double tidal locking" almost never existed within the Solar System, or at least they would not be spoken by the astronomical community.

Until he started talking about celestial bodies, "double tidal locking" in his mouth—seemed to be commonplace in the Solar System!

There was a vague feeling that double tidal locking, in the universe...

Is not rare at all!!!

Xiaoyu's beautiful eyes shifted and suddenly lit up, "Bro, is this double tidal locking the same as what you said about Mars before?"

"The highest mountain at Mars's south pole is the mountain range on the edge of Hellas Planitia, over 9000 meters; the highest mountain at the north pole is Olympus Mons, 21229 meters. That was the result of Mars being locked by two large planets!"

"And those craters and mountain ranges on the far side of the Moon, could they also be?"

Jiang Zhe smiled slightly and didn't confirm directly, "They could be; but this can only count as circumstantial evidence; after all, my explanation this time relies on global twin-moon myths as the underlying logic and chain of evidence."

"But you might as well think about it: perhaps a very, very long time ago, celestial bodies in the Solar System being double tidally locked might not have been a particularly rare occurrence."

"After all, our Solar System is already so special, is it really that outrageous for double tidal locking to appear in the Solar System?"

Xiaoyu opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but couldn't say anything.

After swallowing, she shook her head with eyes sparkling, "It's not outrageous, it's actually quite wonderful!!!"

In the live stream channel, after a few seconds of silence, the barrage exploded like a landslide or tsunami.

"It's not outrageous, not at all!"

"The Solar System is already this special, what's wrong with it being even more special?"

"Exactly, exactly, love it, love it!"

"Mars is double tidally locked, and the Moon is also double tidally locked; from now on, in astronomy class, I'm going to use this to confront the astronomy teacher!"

"What kind of magical place is this Solar System? I just love it so much, okay!"

"I'm increasingly feeling like we were arranged."

"Stop, stop, if you say any more, I'm going to believe in aliens."

"To the person above, I already believe that the inside of the Sun is 36 degrees, and there are aliens living inside!"

"..."

In the Dougou Platform operations manager's office, manager Wang Shulin gave a thumbs up, watching the data skyrocketing, and said with secret delight:

"Of course it's not outrageous. What we want is an interpretation that is outrageous yet damn reasonable; anyway, in the scientific community, whoever's words are more reasonable and bolder, that person is the truth!"