Tidal Locking

[morgoth13]

I'm sure it's been asked a million times over the years, but has there ever been a definitive answer for some of the oddball numbers seen on planets that are classed as tidally locked? I know I've read the game classes some different forms of locked bodies as tidally locked that aren't just a straight 1:1 orbit vs rotation, yet you see so many that seem close but just bit wacky like a 32.2 day rotation and a 32.9 day orbit.

But then there's the others that are hard to even comprehend. I came across one yesterday, not exactly obscure, it's in the bubble. Reasonably large but low-G gas giant, sits 239 LS from the star so I guess a bit under half the earth's distance from the single star, and it's not in a pair. Appears to be a perfectly normal flat circular orbit on the map. It orbits the star in 4.1 days(my math isn't good enough to calculate that speed but this sucker is moving) and rotates once every 132.4 days. Tidally locked of course. Works out to one rotation every 32.3 orbits if I'm doing that right. Obviously I'm neither an astronomer nor a mathematician so I don't know how all these things work but I'm curious how that qualifies.

Is it also including calculations with the other bodies in a system? Does it calculate extremely high ratios like 26482:1278 or some such? Does it just not make any sense? Do I just ask too many stupid questions?

[TiberiuS]

In my opinion it makes no sense.
Tidally locked means the planet/moon rotates at the same speed as it needs for one orbit. So from the center of the orbit you only ever see one side (just like our moon).
It makes no sense that the orbit period differs from the rotational period other than 0.00x% or I wouldn't call it tidally locked...

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

[Laurreth]

Originally posted by morgoth13:

Reasonably large but low-G gas giant, sits 239 LS from the star so I guess a bit under half the earth's distance from the single star, and it's not in a pair. Appears to be a perfectly normal flat circular orbit on the map. It orbits the star in 4.1 days […] and rotates once every 132.4 days.

Do you have the masses of the gas giant and the object it is orbiting, and possibly a screenshot of the system map? A 4-day orbit at 239Ls sounds a bit fishy, and I'm getting stupid numbers like 910 solar masses for the gas giant and the central object combined when plugging that into orbital mechanics. Assuming a 132.4-day orbital period gives a much more likely result of ~0.873 solar masses.

[morgoth13]

Originally posted by Shadowdancer:

Originally posted by morgoth13:

Reasonably large but low-G gas giant, sits 239 LS from the star so I guess a bit under half the earth's distance from the single star, and it's not in a pair. Appears to be a perfectly normal flat circular orbit on the map. It orbits the star in 4.1 days […] and rotates once every 132.4 days.

Do you have the masses of the gas giant and the object it is orbiting, and possibly a screenshot of the system map? A 4-day orbit at 239Ls sounds a bit fishy, and I'm getting stupid numbers like 910 solar masses for the gas giant and the central object combined when plugging that into orbital mechanics. Assuming a 132.4-day orbital period gives a much more likely result of ~0.873 solar masses.

I looked it up again, it was LTT 13232 1. Pretty large (61,000km)but comparatively low mass, only 144 earth means 1.5g which already makes at a fairly odd giant. The star is a very mundane .84 solar mass yellow-orange, not extensive info on it.

I flew to the star and watched the planet for a few minutes while doing other things, didn't detect any movement. I then flew over to the planet and parked about 3 LS away which I figured should be close enough to see it move and still far enough to not be trapped in it's influence. Still no discernible change in either it's position or the stars behind it after 5 or 6 minutes. I've seen planets or at least moons moving fast before so I'm starting to think the numbers on this one might be bogus, but I've never tried to observe a giant's movement.

Topping that off, the next system I went to from there was Lalande 22701 and it's innermost planet was a tiny 345km rock that orbits in 2.5 days(2.4 rotation says locked) but is a nothing 17 LS out. That's a little bit more believable, of course it was cruising so fast it was a bit tough to catch up to lol. I could easily see that one moving from 3 LS away. Got a nice big sun pic from its surface.

Zoom in to read the details.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1836672675

[Laurreth]

Sometimes systems are set up a bit weird in what's orbiting what, but this looks like a bug with data display to me. Report it at https://issues.frontierstore.net/