Potential Melting of Extrasolar Planets by Tidal Dissipation
Darryl Z. Seligman,
Adina D. Feinstein,
Dong Lai
et al.
Abstract:Tidal heating on Io due to its finite eccentricity was predicted to drive surface volcanic activity, which was subsequently confirmed by the Voyager spacecraft. Although the volcanic activity in Io is more complex, in theory volcanism can be driven by runaway melting in which the tidal heating increases as the mantle thickness decreases. We show that this runaway melting mechanism is generic for a composite planetary body with liquid core and solid mantle, provided that (i) the mantle rigidity, μ, is comparabl… Show more
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