All Questions
Tagged with tidal-locking orbital-mechanics
10
questions
16
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3
answers
3k
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Under which conditions could a planet's massive moon's orbit get closer to the planet?
The recent question How do we know the Moon was much closer than it is now? has piqued my interest. The answers are numerous and clear. But I started to wonder. The question includes the following ...
- 30.7k
5
votes
1
answer
282
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Eyeball planets experiencing "catastrophic" flips
This Youtube video by Anton Petrov shows research1 claiming that tidally-locked planets orbiting the same star in tight orbits may interfere with one another and one planet may cause the other to &...
- 263
5
votes
1
answer
151
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If the Earth became tidally locked with the moon, would that last forever?
If the Earth and the moon became tidally locked, would this last theoretically forever (assuming no external gravitational force modifies their orbits, for example, ignoring the effects caused by the ...
- 1,017
4
votes
1
answer
454
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Why circularization of an orbit has longer time scale than tidal locking?
I'm trying to understand the basic physics of orbital evolution. I know that in a two-body system (a planet orbiting a sun for example), eccentric orbits become circular, and the spin of the planet ...
- 607
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 ...
- 1,379
2
votes
2
answers
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Why doesn't Earth's leading tidal bulge cause the Moon to start spinning in the opposite direction than its original spin?
Please refer to the image below:
My question is, why doesn't Earth's leading tidal bulge (encircled in the green circle 1) pull on the moon's tidal bulge (encircled in green circle 2), leading to a ...
- 131
3
votes
1
answer
123
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How would a retrograde satellite experiencing tidal deceleration affect the rotation of the primary?
There are two common scenarios like this one, where an orbiting body orbits its primary slower than the primary rotates, resulting in the orbiting body moving away and the primary experiencing a ...
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9
votes
1
answer
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Why isn't Earth tidally locked to the sun?
Given that the moon has long been tidally locked with the Earth, why isn't Earth (or any of our other solar system's planets) tidally locked to the sun?
- 390
4
votes
4
answers
259
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Can a solar system exist where the second planet rotates fast, and the third planet is tidally locked to their star?
Today I read about the Romulan home star system and it looks like it might be impossible for such a star system to exist.
Memory Alpha describes Remus:
Remus was tidally locked, with one ...
- 41
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 ...
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