this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2023
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Science Memes

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uncomfortable levels of eye contact (mander.xyz)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 52 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Aside from being a meme, the factoid isn't even true.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_locking#Moons

All twenty known moons in the Solar System that are large enough to be round are tidally locked with their primaries [planets]

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It just says other moons. Not all other moons. Meaning the meme isn't untrue... Right?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Pedantically speaking, yes. At least some small moons do freely rotate. But they are all very small and very far from their parent planet. If you were on the surface, you wouldn't see details.

Mars has two small moons close to it, but neither rotate relative to the surface. They're also really small and zip about super fast so they're cool for other reasons.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I was skeptical thank you for the confirmation. Especially because the time it takes to lock depends on the relative size of the bodies. Our moon being exceptionally big relatively to our planet, if it has locked, then relatively smaller moons should have locked long before.
Btw, the locking is not perfect, there's a little oscillation of the moon called libration, so we can actually see about 59% of it over the years.