Study suggests Venus may have consumed its own moon billions of years ago

Two worlds born as twins from the same primordial dust have spent 4.5 billion years growing apart, and a new astrophysical study now proposes a reason why: Venus may have devoured its own moon. Computational modeling suggests that Venus's unusually slow rotation destabilized an early lunar companion, drawing it inward through tidal forces until the planet consumed it entirely. Where Earth's moon has long served as a stabilizing presence — steadying our axial tilt, moderating our climate, perhaps even coaxing life from the tides — Venus may have been denied that influence by its own gravitation