#tidal locking

[politicalantibody]

A “squishy” Eris’ ice mantle will dissipate more tidal energy than a fully solid mantle. So tidal forces from Dysnomia’s differential gravity field would cause Eris to spin down much faster than it would otherwise.

A similar effect occurs here on Earth, where the ocean tides cause drag between moving water and the ocean floor. As a result, our day gets gradually longer, and the Moon’s orbit gets slowly wider. After a suitably long period of time, Earth’s rotation would slow to once per month, and would become tidally locked to the Moon. But as Earth’s rotation slows, the tidal drag also diminishes. So don’t hold your breath - tidal locking would happen well after the Sun becomes a red giant, and then a white dwarf star.

The effect would be more pronounced on Eris, because it’s ice mantle would be much thicker than our oceans, and would dissipate proportionally more energy.

Dwarf planet Eris is ‘squishier’ than expected

University of California, Santa Cruz Professor of Planetary Sciences Francis Nimmo recently co-authored a Science Advances paper about the internal structure of the dwarf planet Eris. Eris is about the size of Pluto but around 50% farther from the sun. The discovery of Eris in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune in 2005 prompted the debate that ultimately reclassified Pluto as a dwarf planet. It was an interest in Pluto that drew UC Santa Cruz researcher Francis Nimmo to study Eris. Nimmo was visiting Michael Brown—one of the discoverers of Eris—at the California Institute of Technology about six months ago and realized some of Brown’s new, unpublished data could help reveal information about the properties of Eris. The two worked on models for the next several months and published their results in a Science Advances paper. Two main pieces of information led to their results. The first important clue is that Eris and its moon, Dysnomia, always face the same way toward each other. The main, unexpected result of Nimmo and Brown’s model is that Eris is surprisingly dissipative, or “squishy”...

Read more: https://charmingscience.com/dwarf-planet-eris-is-squishier-than-expected/

[madelinelovesick]

[jellynotbees]

Narilamb crack idea where lamb is a poor unfortunate sailor stuck on an island after a shipwreck and Narinder is the siren/seamonster circling the island attempting (unsuccessfully) to lure them into the water so he can eat them.

Over the course of time they end up bonding, and after multiple failed murder attempts on Narinder’s part he realizes that he’s stopped seriously hunting them, its more like a game between them at that point (lamb still assumes he would eat them if they fell in, though.) He eventually does catch them, but to lamb’s surprise, he lets them go.

Anyway that’s all I got for now but I am Thinking Thoughts

[comicaurora]

good news I found more outer space

[dat-physics-gal]

Yeah not every planet would have a stabilized axial tilt, or even one at all. Tides might also be interesting for the ambassadors to witness, as i believe most moons aren't actually tidally locked, and definitely not to the point of causing surface water to follow the path of a moon's orbit.

Seasons

The thing to keep in mind, is that humans aren't the only thing on Earth. If Xenos think that humans are odd, just wait until they come and visit. Especially if they come back.

*****

The first delegation came in June. The specific time of year wasn't planned or anything, it was just when things had been nailed down for the visit.

The Coalition had sent a few ambassadors down to Earth for goodwill. Earth was heavier than they were used to and on the larger size of planets they knew of that would support sapient life, and the positively gigantic moon orbiting Earth had caused more than a small amount of conversation, but the visit was otherwise uneventful.

Everyone was on their best behavior around the new visitors and the Sefigan's especially liked Earth's trees. Squat, branching, and thick, they were much more imposing than the tall, spindly things that the Sefigans called trees back on their homeworld. More than one of the small furry Sefigans were caught standing underneath the large oaks in front of the embassy, staring up in wonder.

After many meetings about relations, travel, visas and even tourism, the delegation said their goodbyes and left. All in all, it was a great visit.

Four months later, the delegation returned, this time with more people. Included were representatives from tourism boards as well as the heads of mining companies. It turned out that Earth had a lot more heavy metals than other planets with sapient life, so we had begun talks about exporting our bounty to the settled galaxy.

Captain Mary Markuss met the delegation at the airlock. Like last time, they would be taking a human built ship down to the surface. Most Coalition ships weren't designed to go atmospheric, and most human ships were. After the welcome and introductions were completed, she offered the head ambassadors the option to remain on the Command Deck and watch the landing. "It's quiet beautiful this time of year."

The ambassadors - two Sefigans and two Zz'tks - made polite noises, and sat on the seats prepared for them next to Captain Markuss's chair. She set the forward screens to show external views, so it was like they were looking out of large windows as they landed.

The Sefigans were nervous during the fall through the upper atmosphere, but had been coached ahead of time that this was normal and just how humans landed. It still felt to them like a slightly insane way to go down to your homeworld, but they remained silent.

As the ship burst from the clouds, they saw the trees.

The land was covered in the red, yellow, brown, and gold. It was breathtaking, especially if you weren't used to seeing it. Captain Markuss smiled to herself when she saw it. Autumn was her favorite season, and it was always nice to see, especially now that she wasn't planetside as much. It was slightly past peak color so there were many trees already denuded of leaves.

All four ambassadors gasped in surprise. One of the Sefigan ambassadors turned to Captain Markuss, "Captain! What's happened! Your trees are dying!"

One of the Zz'tk ambassadors clacked their wing covers together, a stress action. "Captain. If your planet is suffering from a major extinction event, you should have told the Colation. We have experts that we could deploy to assist."

Captain Markuss looked over at the ambassadors. They all looked worried. One of the Sefigans was furiously taking notes on their pad. She chuckled. "It's Autumn - one of our seasons. This is normal. The trees lose their green color and drop their leaves in preparation for going dormant during the winter."

The Sefigan taking notes stops with their paw above the tab and slowly looks up at Captain Markuss. "This-" they gesture at the screen "-is normal?"

The Captain nods. "Happens every year here. I grew up in this area. The sounds, the smells, the sights of fall are very nostalgic to me. It's my favorite season. I can't wait to show you some of our autumn traditions!"

They landed without any further conversation, but as they exited the ship, the two Sefigans walked over to the same oak they visited a few months ago and stared up. It was practically glowing it was so bright with orange and yellow leaves. The wind gusted, and the leaves rustled and a small drift of leaves blew around them as they stared. They turned to the Captain, who had walked up next to them. "And, this tree is... not ill?"

She smiled gently. "Not at all. This is a fine Oak. Come the spring, it will be green and lush again. Come, I believe you are able to consume Apples. I have a drink called cider, and there are some pastries called apple cider donuts that have been prepared. They're popular on Earth at this time of year, in places that have seasons like this."

[three-eyes-fox]

Another one for my fanfiction Lamb and the Siren’s Curse

Because I’m in love with these two 🥹

Au from @jellynotbees

[delightfullyoddspec]

The World Map

Here we have Marmakul, which is a tidally locked planet with two suns and two moons. The planet has only one giant supercontinent, the titular Abo, with a horribly fractured relief. There is also a minicontinent Ged (or a big island, take it as you will).

Also, don't be fooled! Marmakul is locked towards two suns at once. What results in a rather amusing situation.

In the center of a Dayside a giant storm is always raging. It can grow as big as a whole Dayside, if both stars are in the active phase. Or shrink back to the area shown on the map under sub-stellar point.

You can read general biome overview here and general overview of plant life here.

Important note on origin of animal life.

[trappist-1-f]

I realize I have been shockingly inactive, so, I am here to answer any and all questions you may have for me!

[extravagantliar]

are we still two moon truthers or do I need to edit the thing I’m working on

[hexane-nightmares]

Tidal locking! Not splaining to you, I want to make sure lots of followers see this because it's cool: The gravity of the earth and moon causes tides, which sort of use up the energy of rotation, until the moon no longer rotates relative to the earth.

Left: actual earth-moon behaviour, locked. Right: if it were unlocked and the moon didn't rotate at all we would see all sides of the moon.

I also like another fact, though this one is a coincidence: why do eclipses fit so nicely? The moon so neatly blocks the sun? The moon and sun happen to look the same size to us because the sun is about 400 times the size of the moon, but also about 400 times as far away.

the fact that the moons orbit almost perfectly matches how it spins so only one side is ever facing the earth us so cool to me

[deusluxmachaera]

Some warmies came in today. Right as we passed through the sub-Jovian Point too. Had to stop one from looking straight up at Jove. They say it's like the planet's falling on them. Got to keep 'em moving. If they lay down to keep it all in view, they'll freeze. Got to keep 'em moving.

[whirligig-girl]

Oistir - a tidally locked super earth, home to three sentient aquatic species. Done for @raydrawsdaly

[lights-at-night]

uhhh consider: ranefall are sun and moon coded. faulkner is to his worshippers a bright, shining holy thing, and one day he will inevitably burn out. faulkner is to his sect of the parish as a sun is to the earth. his fanatics orbit him as the high prophet - with reverence and distance. no one can look him. rane, as the moon, orbits the parish first and foremost. as the moon is visible to us by the sun's light, rane is only shown to us in faulkner's perspective. the moon is more known of and seen by the earth, like how rane has more of a presence among faulkner's worshippers than faulkner himself. the moon reflects the sun as rane is seen as a reflection of faulkner. do you hear me

[jellynotbees]

Was mega busy these last few days but managed to make a Narinder concept art and a silly comic.

These two have infested every crevice of my brain and I am having a blast

[lorebird]

I sunk 24 hours of rendering into this piece so MAY AS WELL POST IT

I had to design and illustrate an underground city for my concept art class, and decided to go with subterranean aliens building a vertical metropolis! I’m very inexperienced and no real good with xenobiology, so they ended up like walmart brand bug ferrets….. but I’m definitely happy with the style of architecture!!

[monarch-rulerofsoul]

Mmm…

Tidally Locked AU got me thinking…

May or not be writing one right now

@jellynotbees would that be ok if I put it on ao3?