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I always visualized that the tidal locking to be sort of like meshed gears, such that the one revolution around itself is same as a rotation around the star/pla
by yellowflash 7y ago
I always visualized that the tidal locking to be sort of like meshed gears, such that the one revolution around itself is same as a rotation around the star/planet if its a satellite.
But that shouldn't affect the day/night in this case right? Since we are talking about planets not satellites of planets and they are light sources not just reflecting light from the star. Can you please correct where I am wrong?
- kybernetikos 7y agoIt follows from "one revolution around itself is same as a rotation around the star" that a planet tidally locked to its star presents the same face to the star at all times, so you have a 'Day' side and a 'Night' side. Neither side of which is likely to be particularly life friendly. Perhaps there might be some 'twilight zone' that could be though...
- __MatrixMan__ 7y agoTidal locking means that the denser side of the lighter body always faces the heavier body, and the less-dense side of the lighter body already faces away from the heavier one. The moon is tidally locked to the Earth, which is why it has a dark side.
- pault 7y agoSo the Apollo "earthrise" photos are just "earth"?
- archgoon 7y agoNo; they weren't taken from the moon; they were taken from the Apollo 8 spacecraft, which was orbiting, so the Earth did in fact 'rise'.
- quakeguy 7y agoYes, Earth does not move significantly on the moon sky, if i remember right. It does rotate though. Edit: Archgoon is right, the photos were taken from the orbiting module, so a rise happened.
- wiredfool 7y agoThere is no dark side in the moon. There is a far side.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- __MatrixMan__ 7y agoYou're right, but I'm pretty sure that "The dark side of the Moon" is a proper name at this point. It's dark like the darknet is dark... Occluded.