0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
But what if the object is a non-rigid body, e.g. a lump of gas.
Therefore will a non-rotating rigid body orbiting a central mass show the same side towards the central mass. I like to think about this as: “An object moving in orbit, or close to a massive object, is moving in a straight path in a curved environment, rather than in a curved path in a flat environment.” Since we believe in general relativity this seems reasonable according to me.
When viewed from Earth the Moon wobbles [libration] ...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libration#Lunar_librationTidal locking causes the same side of the moon to face Earth. Before tidal-locking all of the moon would have been visible from Earth,( no eyes on Earth at that time to see that though).