All Questions
Tagged with tidal-locking tidal-forces
21
questions
16
votes
3
answers
3k
views
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
1
vote
1
answer
73
views
Will the Earth tidally lock to the Moon (ignoring Sun's expansion)
At some point, won't the tidal forces from the Moon be less than the ones from the Sun? Would that mean that the Moon stops moving away, or would the process still continue. Would the Earth start ...
- 155
2
votes
3
answers
293
views
What does the rate the Moon moves away from Earth depend on?
Is it based on the distance between the Earth and Moon? Would that make the Moon move away faster or slower as time goes on?
- 155
12
votes
1
answer
2k
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Would the Earth and Moon still have tides after the Earth tidally locks to the Moon?
Ignore the Sun's expansion.
From my understanding, tidal locking happens from torque as a result of tidal bulges being offset from the line between the two planets. So when the Earth and Moon tidally ...
- 155
9
votes
2
answers
3k
views
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 ...
- 1,107
2
votes
1
answer
161
views
Are there tidally locked bodies where the "far side" is denser?
It makes sense that tidal forces lead to tidal locking. Celestial bodies have varying densities and shapes, so some orientations have a lower gravitational potential, and eventually the tendency will ...
- 121
4
votes
1
answer
454
views
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
25
votes
2
answers
3k
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How can Io be tidally heated while it is in tidal lock?
According to its Wikipedia page:
Rotation period: synchronous
Eccentricity: 0.0041
But also
...extreme geologic activity is the result of tidal heating...
How is it possible? It should not be ...
- 3,179
6
votes
1
answer
273
views
Tidally locked Venus, is it possible and consequences?
Suppose, Venus becomes tidally locked. Will its dark side cool enough so that the CO2 from the atmosphere to precipitate in liquid form to make an ocean?
Also, I wonder, how close Venus is to becoming ...
- 1,265
5
votes
1
answer
413
views
Is a three body gravitating system doomed to collapse?
Suppose we have two gravitating bodies, which are rotating around each other. They are bodies and are affected by deformation caused by tidal forces. Moving tidal waves suck energy from the axial ...
- 153
2
votes
2
answers
200
views
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
2
votes
1
answer
180
views
Does a rotating moon experience greater tidal heating than a tidally locked equivalent?
Tidal heating of a tidally locked moon is relatively straight forward to calculate, even though details of its internal structure is hard to work out in the first place.
By contrast, tidal heating due ...
2
votes
0
answers
62
views
Can tidal locking increase rotational kinetic energy? Where does the energy come from then? [closed]
I was thinking about the explanation for how the Moon gets tidally locked with the Earth. We are working in the non-rotating reference frame of the Earth, and assume it is inertial (to an approximate ...
- 265
5
votes
1
answer
237
views
How will the Solar tides affect the Earth's rotation once it is tidally locked to the Moon?
It is my understanding that the tidal forces of the Moon acting on Earth cause it to slow down its rotation and, because angular momentum is conserved, the Moon's orbit subsequently expands. This ...
- 2,699
9
votes
1
answer
848
views
Why do planets in red dwarf star systems tend to have a higher probability to get tidally locked?
I have read about about the habitability of red dwarf systems on Wikipedia, as well as some web articles on similar topics. The problem is, it does not explain why and how it happened. Google search ...
- 201