All Questions
Tagged with tidal-locking natural-satellites
5
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How would ocean tides work on a tidally-locked planet?
Since the tidal bulge is always in the same place, how would that affect ocean tides? Would they change throughout an elliptical orbit, due to changing distance from the star? How exactly would they ...
4
votes
1
answer
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Is it possible to have a positive rational number of months (more than 1) in a year?
It is possible for a planet to have orbital resonance with a sun (e.g. Mercury has a 3:2 spin resonance with the sun). It is also possible for a moon to have orbital resonance with a planet (e.g. our ...
5
votes
1
answer
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Are there any bodies in the solar system whose rotation is almost tidally locked or barely tidally locked?
The Moon's rotation is firmly tidally locked to the Earth and the Earth's rotation is firmly tidally unlocked with respect to the Moon. I gather that Mercury's rotation is tidally locked in a 3:2 ...
3
votes
1
answer
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Does tidal locking also slowly reduce the orbiting body's axial angle?
The Moon is tidally locked to the Earth, and it has an axial angle of 6.687 degrees relative to its orbital plane. I'd like to know: did the Moon start out with a higher axial angle?
In other words, ...
8
votes
2
answers
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Eventual outcome of tidal acceleration and deceleration
So, I know the Moon experiences tidal acceleration from the Earth. And, from what I've read, if not for the fact that the sun would boil away the oceans and engulf both of them first, about 50 billion ...