Questions tagged [tidal-locking]
Questions regarding a phenomenon when an object has an orbital period that is equal to its rotational period due to gravitational tidal forces.
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Does the orbital decay of Triton affect Neptune's rotation?
Just a quick question regarding Neptune. Because Phobos is spiraling in towards Mars, Mars' rotation speeds up. Does the same thing happen with Neptune's rotation?
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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 ...
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How much (more or less) of the moon will be visible as it recedes from the Earth?
The Moon is receding from the Earth, at a rate of about 4 cm per year. We can currently see about 59% of the Moon's surface, from the Earth's surface.
Will the amount of the Moon's surface we can see ...
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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 ...
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If all the Trappist-1 planets are tidally locked, which ones may have temperate zones?
Since all the Trappist-1 planets have circular orbits, it is entirely likely that all them are tidally locked.
If so, which ones of the planets may have temperate zones either on the bright or dark ...
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Do retrograde spin-orbit resonances exist?
The end state of rotation of an initially fast-spinning prograde terrestrial planet (in the absence of additional forcings such as "thermal tides" in an atmosphere, e.g. Venus) is a spin-...
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Where did the idea that tidally-locked planets have a big hurricane come from?
I've been noticing a bit of a trend in the depiction of tidally-locked habitable planets, where they are shown having a huge hurricane-like storm over the daylight hemisphere. Here's an example, and ...
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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 ...
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Does habitable zone take tidally locked bodies into account?
Imagine a tidally locked planet orbiting a red dwarf, where habitability is not situated close to terminator zone, but on a "small" cap normal to incident starlight (zenith) with permanent average +15 ...
