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Old January 18th 05, 05:15 AM
Henry Spencer
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In article ,
Craig Fink wrote:
Just wondering how big the tides on Titan might be?
Maybe they're huge?


Yes and no. Your intuition is correct that Saturn will raise very large
tidal bulges in Titan. *However*, Titan is tide-locked to Saturn, so
those big bulges don't move around much -- the moon is basically just a
little bit egg-shaped all the time.

Titan's slightly elliptical orbit will cause the bulges to move around a
little, and also to change height slightly as the distance from Saturn
changes. So they aren't *quite* completely fixed, but fairly close to it.

(This *was* used to put some constraints on the possibility of a global
ocean on Titan: tidal dissipation effects would have circularized Titan's
orbit long ago if it had a shallow global ocean, especially one obstructed
by islands and continents like Earth's. Titanian oceans had to be either
fairly deep and essentially land-free, or broken up into multiple
unconnected regional oceans.)
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |