Near side of the moon - Synchronous rotation. (2 Viewers)

[dajmno]

Tidal locking - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Now you know.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

Now you know.

i paid attention in 6th grade

 

[Bronson]

You are complicating a very simple explanation. Here's the dumbed down version for us common folk.

The change in rotation rate necessary to tidally lock a body B to a larger body A is caused by the torque applied by A's gravity on bulges it has induced on B by tidal forces.
A's gravity produces a tidal force on B which distorts its gravitational equilibrium shape slightly so that it becomes elongated along the axis oriented toward A, and conversely, is slightly reduced in dimension in directions perpendicular to this axis. These distortions are known as tidal bulges. When B is not yet tidally locked, the bulges travel over its surface, with one of the two "high" tidal bulges traveling close to the point where body A is overhead. For large astronomical bodies which are near-spherical due to self-gravitation, the tidal distortion produces a slightly prolate spheroid - i.e., an axially symmetric ellipsoid that is elongated along its major axis. Smaller bodies also experience distortion, but this distortion is less regular.
The material of B exerts resistance to this periodic reshaping caused by the tidal force. In effect, some time is required to reshape B to the gravitational equilibrium shape, by which time the forming bulges have already been carried some distance away from the A–B axis by B's rotation. Seen from a vantage point in space, the points of maximum bulge extension are displaced from the axis oriented towards A. If B's rotation period is shorter than its orbital period, the bulges are carried forward of the axis oriented towards A in the direction of rotation, whereas if B's rotation period is longer the bulges lag behind instead.
If the tidal bulges of a body are misaligned with the major axis, the tidal forces exert a net torque on that body that twists the body towards the direction of realignment.
Since the bulges are now displaced from the A–B axis, A's gravitational pull on the mass in them exerts a torque on B. The torque on the A-facing bulge acts to bring B's rotation in line with its orbital period, while the "back" bulge which faces away from A acts in the opposite sense. However, the bulge on the A-facing side is closer to A than the back bulge by a distance of approximately B's diameter, and so experiences a slightly stronger gravitational force and torque. The net resulting torque from both bulges, then, is always in the direction which acts to synchronize B's rotation with its orbital period, leading eventually to tidal locking.
If rotational frequency is larger than orbital frequency, a small torque counteracting the rotation arises, eventually locking the frequencies (situation depicted in green)
The angular momentum of the whole A–B system is conserved in this process, so that when B slows down and loses rotational angular momentum, its orbital angular momentum is boosted by a similar amount (there are also some smaller effects on A's rotation). This results in a raising of B's orbit about A in tandem with its rotational slowdown. For the other case where B starts off rotating too slowly, tidal locking both speeds up its rotation, and lowers its orbit.
The tidal locking effect is also experienced by the larger body A, but at a slower rate because B's gravitational effect is weaker due to B's smaller size. For example, the Earth's rotation is gradually slowing down because of the Moon, by an amount that becomes noticeable over geological time in some fossils.[1] For bodies of similar size the effect may be of comparable size for both, and both may become tidally locked to each other. The dwarf planet Pluto and its satellite Charon are good examples of this—Charon is only visible from one hemisphere of Pluto and vice versa.
Finally, in some cases where the orbit is eccentric and the tidal effect is relatively weak, the smaller body may end up in an orbital resonance, rather than tidally locked. Here the ratio of rotation period to orbital period is some well-defined fraction different from 1:1. A well known case is the rotation of Mercury—locked to its orbit around the Sun in a 3:2 resonance.As can be seen, even knowing the size and density of the satellite leaves many parameters that must be estimated (especially w, Q, and ), so that any calculated locking times obtained are expected to be inaccurate, to even factors of ten. Further, during the tidal locking phase the orbital radius a may have been significantly different from that observed nowadays due to subsequent tidal acceleration, and the locking time is extremely sensitive to this value.
Since the uncertainty is so high, the above formulas can be simplified to give a somewhat less cumbersome one. By assuming that the satellite is spherical, , Q = 100, and it is sensible to guess one revolution every 12 hours in the initial non-locked state (most asteroids have rotational periods between about 2 hours and about 2 days)
with masses in kg, distances in meters, and μ in Nm−2. μ can be roughly taken as 3×1010 Nm−2 for rocky objects and 4×109 Nm−2 for icy ones.
Note the extremely strong dependence on orbital radius a.
For the locking of a primary body to its moon as in the case of Pluto, satellite and primary body parameters can be interchanged.
One conclusion is that other things being equal (such as Q and μ), a large moon will lock faster than a smaller moon at the same orbital radius from the planet because grows as the cube of the satellite radius,.[contradictory] A possible example of this is in the Saturn system, where Hyperion is not tidally locked, while the larger Iapetus, which orbits at a greater distance, is. However, this is not clear cut because Hyperion also experiences strong driving from the nearby Titan, which forces its rotation to be chaotic.
The above formulae for the timescale of locking may be off by orders of magnitude, because they ignore the frequency dependence of .

 

[Galbreath34]

If we're around long enough, and the sun lasts long enough, eventually Earth will be locked to a moon that's moved further away. Then you might have to travel just to see the moon

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

If we're around long enough, and the sun lasts long enough, eventually Earth will be locked to a moon that's moved further away. Then you might have to travel just to see the moon

won't we see it on the Mars commute?
in fact that's where i'm intending to pull over and pee
(not b/c i need to b/c of the waste recycling suit, just so i can see how far i can pee in 1/6th gravity)

 

[ClayT101]

won't we see it on the Mars commute?
in fact that's where i'm intending to pull over and pee
(not b/c i need to b/c of the waste recycling suit, just so i can see how far i can pee in 1/6th gravity)

Talk about shrinkage.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

Talk about shrinkage.

but very little saggage