Quote:
Originally Posted by lwcamp
A moon around a large planet will probably be tidally locked, meaning that the planet around which the moon orbits will always be in the same spot in the sky (ignoring minor wobbles from tidal libration forced by other moons around the planet). This makes navigation even easier - you can just reference your position compared to a huge big obvious planet hanging in the sky. Combined with a pole star (or group of stars near the pole, if no star is conveniently right on the pole like Polaris is for us) you get both latitude and longitude.
Obviously, this only works on one hemisphere of the moon. The hemisphere facing away from the planet doesn't let you see the planet, so you only get latitude from your sky observations, like on Earth.
Luke
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So, would that typically mean that (much like our own moon) that "night" and "day" would be measured in days instead of hours?