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Tides
Effects of Tidal Forces
The tidal force is a universal consequence of Newtons law of gravity, and we can see its effects throughout the universe. The force that causes the Earths
oceans to rise and fall also operates elsewhere in the solar system and beyond. Large objects in close proximity exert the strongest tidal forces, but any time
two large objects orbit each other closely, tides are important. This is true of planets, stars, and even entire galaxies!
The same tidal force that stretches a satellite also tends to slow its rotation until the longest axis of the satellite lines up with the planet. Just as the Earths
rotation is slowing due to the Moons tidal force on it, the Moons rotation has slowed until it is locked into this position. This is why most satellites, like the
Moon, face toward their planet they are tidally locked in that orientation. We always see the same face of the Moon from the Earth because the
Moons rotation period is the same as the time it takes to complete one orbit around the Earth. Another way of saying this is that the Moon is in a 1:1 spin
orbit resonance the ratio of its rotational (spin) period to its orbital period is 1 to 1. Examples of this are common in our solar system. Pluto and Charon
are tidally locked to each other. Mercurys eccentric orbit prevents it from being in a 1:1 spin orbit resonance. Instead, its in a 3:2 resonance in other
words, Mercurys day is two-thirds as long as its year.
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If a satellite (or a passing body) comes very close to a planet, the tidal forces can be destructive. The closer two objects are in space, the stronger the
gravity between them, and the stronger the tidal force. So the closer an object comes to a planet, the more its stretched. Within a certain distance called
the Roche limit, stretching forces can break it apart. Thats why we dont see satellites orbiting too close to planets instead, we see ring systems within a
certain distance of the planet. These rings are the remnants of bodies that were broken up by tidal forces.
Even when theres no water to respond to tidal forces, the solid mass of a planet feels the stress caused by these forces. In fact, tidal forces can heat the
interior of a satellite in an elliptical orbit. In that case, the satellite comes closer to the planet during one part of its orbit, and there its subjected to strong
stretching forces. As it moves away from the planet, the stress is partly released, and the body relaxes back toward a more spherical shape. This continual
flexing of the satellite creates heat through internal friction, in the same way that if you flex a tennis ball enough times, it becomes warm. This effect is called
tidal heating. The more elliptical the orbit, the stronger the tidal heating. Jupiters large Galilean satellites experience this kind of heating enough to produce
extensive volcanism on Io, and possibly create liquid-water oceans beneath the surface of Europa.
Tags:
physics planets resonance roches limit tidal force
Calculating Tidal Forces
If the Sun keeps the Earth in its orbit, why is it the Moon that causes tides? To understand this, we need to compare the strength of the gravitational force
of the Sun and the Moon on the Earth. The force of gravity is proportional to the mass of two bodies and inversely proportional to the square of the
distance between them. In this equation, there is also a numerical constant, G. The subscripts S, E, and M represent the Sun, Earth, and Moon,
respectively. The force of gravity caused by the Sun on the Earth is:
F
SE
= G M
S
M
E
/ (R
SE
)
2
The force of gravity caused by the Moon on the Earth is:
F
ME
= G M
M
M
E
/ (R
ME
)
2
Some quantities will cancel out if we take the ratio of the Suns force on the Earth to the Moons force, F
SE
/F
ME
. (In general, when you are doing algebra
problems, you should wait until you have simplified the relations as much as you can before plugging in numbers and solving the equation.) The ratio of these
forces is:
F
SE
/ F
ME
= (M
S
/ M
M
)(R
ME
/ R
SE
)
2
Now we can insert the values to get the answer. The masses of the Sun and Moon are M
S
= 2.0 10
30
kilograms and M
M
= 7.4 10
22
kilograms. The
distances from the Earth are R
SE
= 1.5 10
8
kilometers (1 Astronomical Unit or A.U., by definition) and RME = 3.8 10
5
kilometers. We get the result
F
SE
/ F
ME
= 173. So the Suns attractive force on the Earth is over a hundred times the size of the Moons attractive force. There is no question that the
Sun controls the orbit of the Earth. So how can the Moon cause the tides on the Earth? The gravitational force depends on the inverse square of distance.
So the gravitational force on the near side of a large object is larger than the gravitational force on the far side the result is a stretching force called a tidal
force. Tides are caused by the difference between the gravitational force on one side of an object and the other side.
We can approximate the strength of the tidal force by taking the gravitational force we just calculated, and multiplying it by the ratio of the front-to-back
distance of the Earth divided by its distance from the Sun or Moon. (Youd need calculus to derive a precise result.) Lets call the Earths diameter D
E
. For
the stretching of the Sun on the Earth, we get:
D
E
/ R
SE
= 12,700 / 1.5 10
8
= 8.5 10
-5
For the stretching of the Moon on the Earth, we get:
D
E
/ R
ME
= 12,700 / 384,000 = 0.033
The ratio of these two numbers is 390. The size of the Earth is a much larger fraction of the Earth-Moon distance than it is of the Earth-Sun distance. In
other words, the difference between the Moons gravitational force at the near side of the Earth and the far side is a much larger fraction of the total force
exerted on the Earth. This difference causes tides.
While the Sun has a larger force on the entire Earth than the Moon, the Moon has a larger stretching force. Larger by what factor? It is larger by the ratio of
390 to 173, or roughly a factor of two. Even though the Moon controls the Earths tides, the Sun is a significant contributor the Sun raises tides that are
about half as large as the Moons tides. This is the reason that tides are more extreme near a full Moon or a new Moon (spring tides), when the stretching
forces due to the Moon and Sun line up in the same direction. Neap tides occur when these stretching forces are perpendicular to each other, so they
partially cancel out.
Tags:
gravity physics tidal force tide
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