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Old 08-06-2017, 04:22 PM   #9
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: Navigating Strange Worlds

Quote:
Originally Posted by lwcamp View Post
It would only be temporary. Conservation of momentum will keep the spin axis pointing in the same direction, like a top. So consider if you had a situation where the moon's spin axis was pointing directly at the planet. As the moon orbited its planet, the moon would move off to the side but the axis would continue to point in the same direction, so that it would no longer be pointing at the planet. A quarter orbital period later, in fact, the planet would be rising and setting over the projection of the moon's equator onto the celestial sphere, and a half orbital period later the planet would have switched poles.
Okay, yeah, that would be like the sun's apparent position shifting to north and south as the earth orbits it. Only more so.
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