29
submitted 8 months ago by exocrinous@lemm.ee to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

A tidally locked planet does not rotate in relation to its sun. One side is always day, one, always night. This is caused by tidal forces pulling all planets towards this same equilibrium, so it's completely stable once it does occur..a tidally locked planet at an earthlike distance from the sun would be scorching heat on one side, freezing ice on the other.

What about at different distances? Is there a band of orbital distance where the night side of a tidally locked planet is warm enough for liquid water? Or one far away enough that the day side can have oceans?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 20 points 8 months ago

Who knows, maybe life is possible on the ring of twilight where it's not too hot and not too cold. The planet where the Twi'leks in Star Wars are from is that way. Always sounded plausible to me.

[-] exocrinous@lemm.ee 14 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Been doing some googling. Most stars are dwarf stars, and the habitable band of a red dwarf is so close the tidal forces are way stronger. It might turn out that most habitable planets are tidally locked.

There's a book called The City In The Middle Of The Night that takes place on a tidally locked planet. It has politics, science fiction, and lesbians.

[-] keefshape@lemmy.ca 10 points 8 months ago
[-] exocrinous@lemm.ee 7 points 8 months ago

It also kinda makes you feel like shit, but in a really good way.

[-] sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 6 points 8 months ago
this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2024
29 points (96.8% liked)

Asklemmy

43908 readers
948 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS