3 ms·

But why does this not happen to planets themselves in relation to the sun?

• anlsh 6mo ago
  I think the explanation is wrong: wikipedia offers a completely different explanation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_locking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_locking. Planets can become tidally locked to the sun- mercury is. Probably the timescale required for the other planets is just much longer EDIT: Apparently mercury isn't actually tidally locked to the sun, TIL
  • willis936 6mo ago
    I don't see how my ELI5 disagrees with the wikipedia article.
    • anlsh 6mo ago
      wikipedia's explanation works for uniform bodies, yours doesn't. And since tidal bulges seem to be symmetric, there's no away to explain away the deformation as making one side heavier
      • willis936 6mo ago
        I don't think their explanation works for uniform bodies.
• deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
• _moof 6mo ago
  Moons get tidally locked because they're very close to their planet, so the planet's gravity is by far the strongest influence. The planets have much more complicated gravitational interactions because in addition to the Sun's gravity, they influence each other. So you end up with things like orbital resonances instead. A planet that's close to its star and far from other strong gravitational influences will tidally lock to the star.