How is the moon tidally locked?
How is the moon tidally locked?
The moon rotates once per revolution around the Earth, but that's not a coincidence. Somehow the rotation and revolution are connected to each other. Some force is keeping them the same. How exactly does that work?
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All the large moons in the solar system are tidally locked to their planet!
Pluto and Charon are tidally locked to each other!
The earth would eventually be tidally locked to the moon too, but because it's happening so slowly, it wouldn't happen before the sun turns into a red giant and engulf both!
There is such a huge difference in the masses of the earth and moon that although the moon is slowing the rotation of the earth, the earth's rotation is also speeding up the moon's orbit. The faster orbit is causing the moon to move farther away from the earth.