Could Mercury Have Been a Moon of Venus in the Past?

Hey folks. I decided to put this in The Gray Area because it's more of a question from me and maybe some speculation.

I was just thinking about this, and it hit me when I realized that Mercury does indeed resemble a natural satellite. My speculation is that perhaps at a time when Venus was in a more life-friendly state, it had a moon. Some cataclysm happened and Venus's moon got whacked out of orbit and got pulled towards the Sun (which would make sense, no?).

Perhaps this has to do with its current runaway greenhouse-effect?

I don't claim to be an Astronomer, so if my query is considered stupid, I apologize.

I did a search on Google about this, and nothing came up.

Reading the tilt of all the planets axis, Venuses is the highest, which would go along with the hypothesis of it getting hit somehow. It would also explain why it is so hot.

en.wikipedia.org...

The problem is, it is hypothesized that Earth got hit by a planet, but our tilt is so much smaller.

Ours could have been a direct hit to the center. It could even readjust itself like a top sometimes does. By the looks of things it would have been more recent for Venus, compared to Earth.

It could also explain Venuses odd clockwise rotation.

en.wikipedia.org...

That may also explain the high levels of CO2, which could have possibly formed if an Oxygen rich planet hit it, and formed with previous Carbon.

Hope this helps your hypothesis.

An interesting tale of Mercury here:
www.varchive.org...
See

PART III: MERCURY AND MEMORY
The Confusion of Languages
Mercury

Mercury's arrival even stumps Velikovsky and thats not
easy to do.
However based on ancient records of observation, Velikovsky
places Mercury being an 'item' around the time of the Tower of Babel
episode in man's history.

I see the confusion at that time more to the development of written
symbols that separated peoples based on the statements that man
did not require all to have the same memory after writing down
what was required. Just so happened different groups had different
requirements and thus the ultimate confusion.

I'd like to bump this thread in light of the last two posts (thank you, folks).

Mercury has a lot of satellite-like qualities. It also has a highly eccentric orbit, which is suspect in my eyes at least.

It looks like a moon, as well. It's almost the same size as our moon.

I could totally see Mercury as a past satellite of Venus. Anyone? Phage?????

Thanks to Phlynx, I've furthered my "research". Here are the facts:

(1): They say Venus was once much more hospitable than it is now: www.time.com...

(2): Mercury does looks a moon/satellite:



(3): It has the most eccentric orbit of all the planets:

Mercury has the most eccentric orbit of all the planets; its eccentricity is 0.21 with its distance from the Sun ranging from 46 to 70 million kilometers. It takes 88 days to complete an orbit.

en.wikipedia.org...

(4) and (5): Venus's axial rotation is retrograde and also has an axial tilt of 177 degrees:

Object/Axial tilt (°)/Axial tilt (radians)
Mercury/~0.01/0.00
Venus/177.4/3.10
Earth/23.44/0.41
Moon/6.688/0.03
Mars/25.19/0.44
Ceres/~4/0.07
Pallas/~60/~1
Jupiter/3.13/0.06
Saturn/26.73/0.47
Uranus/97.77/1.71
Neptune/28.32/0.49
Pluto/119.61/2.09

en.wikipedia.org...

I'm sure that the Astrophysicists would have said something by now if this could be the case, so who knows. I wish there were more discussion on this. If someone doesn't agree, instead of not replying, please join the conversation and help set the record straight.

[edit on 7/22/2010 by impaired]

Mercury looks smoother than the moon but we don't get close to it.
It definitely was a new arrival to the solar system and perhaps preserved from
further damage as our moon by being close to the sun all this time.

Stones being scattered over Mars and places on Earth due to close contact
with comets has not shown up on the moon in its smooth landscape photos.
The Moon exploration has not fared well as not all Mars or Earth or the Moon
can have meteorite fields but the Moon should have some.

Mercury being shielded by the sun might not have a extensive meteorite field.