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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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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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 ...
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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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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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M Dwarf radiation and habitability at the terminator of a tidally-locked planet?
I know that M Dwarf stars emit intense solar flares, which is thought to pose a potential problem for the emergence of life on planets that orbit them. But I was wondering if the life that might exist ...
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Would tidally locked Earth-like exoplanets necessarily have hot pole/cold pole atmospheric circulation?
A tidally locked planet orbiting a red dwarf star in its habitable zone would have a rotational period equal to its orbital period, on the order of days or weeks.
Given a thick enough atmosphere ...
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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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If a planet orbits an M-Star in an S-type orbit around a G star, what is the minimum distance from the G star that it could remain tidally locked?
I'm wondering how close a planet-M-dwarf system could orbit a G star and have the planet remain tidally locked to the M star. I'm curious, because I'm designing a habitable planet, and I want the ...
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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 ...
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Why is the moon tidally locked with the earth?
Why the moon is tidally locked with the earth? What is the reason for the tidal locking of the moon with the earth? What causes tidal locking?