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I find the idea of inhabiting a planet "tidally locked" to its star fascinating. I'd never heard of such a thing until reading that article.
by Encosia 16y ago
I find the idea of inhabiting a planet "tidally locked" to its star fascinating. I'd never heard of such a thing until reading that article.
- hugh3 16y agoSufficiently close-in planets inevitably wind up tidally locked to their stars, like the moon is to Earth. And since we're a lot better at observing close-in planets due to their small orbital periods, a helluva lot of currently known planets are tidally locked.
- dasil003 16y agoYeah me neither. Is there any good sci-fi about the concept? Imagine sending a human there, if you could do it in a human life span, I'm sure you'd find volunteers to do it. But what would be the psychological effect of having to live out your life on the terminator in perpetual twilight? Would they eventually go insane and just run into the starlight and cook themselves?
- hugh3 16y agoI think there was such a planet mentioned in one of Asimov's Foundation books. It was a pleasant resort planet, as I recall, with the settlements around the habitable ring having constantly perfect weather. edit: I looked it up: Radole, in Second Foundation. Asimov coined the term "ribbon world" to describe planets like this where the habitable zone forms a ribbon.
- jodrellblank 16y agoSounds like ringworld would be a better fit for that scenario - and vice-versa, even.
- berntb 16y agoFor quite a while, Mercury was thought to be tidal locked. You'll find lots of old SF with that "fact". Edit: Until 1965, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_locking#Planets http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_locking#Planets Edit 2: Check Larry Niven's first published short story. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Niven#Work http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Niven#Work
- dstorrs 16y agoIANAP, but it seems pretty unlikely that this would be possible, at least in any way short of living in underground bunkers. I would expect that either the atmosphere would boil off from the hot side (if there wasn't enough gravity to retain it), or the gravity COULD retain it in which case you would get constant world-wide hurricane force winds.
- hugh3 16y agoIAAP but I'm not so sure what would happen, it's nonobvious. I did find this short article, based on a more thorough research paper from 1997, suggesting it might be possible though: http://www.treitel.org/Richard/rass/tidelock01.txt http://www.treitel.org/Richard/rass/tidelock01.txt In short, not only can such a tide-locked planet maintain an atmosphere, but it might even be habitable over much of its surface, with an active water cycle and maybe even a near-breathable surface.
- dstorrs 16y agoThat is really cool. Thank you for the correction, and for the article.
- Retric 16y agoA tidally locked planet with a significant atmosphere would not heat up as much as you might think. The atmosphere would transmit most of that energy around the planet fairly quickly. Consider the Earth has a circumference of 24,859 miles and the jet stream has been measured at around 247 MPH at those speeds air would circle the earth once every 4 days. However, far more important is radent heating increases as the fourth power of temperature which is why the moon never goes over 123°C even after 24/7 sunlight for several days at a time.
- JoeAltmaier 16y agoMercury. Well, sort of. 3/2 tidally locked (switches sides once a year due to elliptical orbit)