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Exploding_Antelope t1_ixqlniv wrote

Reply to comment by Reniconix in Mars may be slowly ripping its largest moon apart by peterabbit456

Isn’t our moon already tidally locked?

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Reniconix t1_ixqlqd9 wrote

It is, but I'm talking about the opposite: Earth becoming tidally locked to the Moon, etc.

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Exploding_Antelope t1_ixqm9qw wrote

Got it. That got me wondering, do we know how long that’ll take for Earth? And what I read is that by the time it happens, the sun will mostly likely have expanded anyway, which would obviously have much bigger effects on the whole system.

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Reniconix t1_ixqoftb wrote

The sun will engulf the earth before this happens.

The sun expanding will actually not change anything past Earth's orbit. The center of gravity will be unchanged, thus expansion alone cannot affect orbits.

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