So, How big are the tides on Titan?

Just wondering how big the tides on Titan might be?

Maybe they're huge?

Low gravity in conjunction with a really big moon called Saturn. After all
motion is relative. ;-)

Craig Fink

Craig Fink wrote:
Just wondering how big the tides on Titan might be?

Maybe they're huge?

Low gravity in conjunction with a really big moon called Saturn. After all
motion is relative. ;-)

Craig Fink

Some web sites say Titan's tide locked. If it's tidelocked, the tidal
bulge will stay put.


--
Hop David
http://clowder.net/hop/index.html

On 2005-01-17, Craig Fink wrote:
Just wondering how big the tides on Titan might be?

Maybe they're huge?

Low gravity in conjunction with a really big moon called Saturn. After all
motion is relative. ;-)

I spent Friday watching the ESA TV feed, which included an interview
with someone who'd been working on what to do if Huygens ended up in the
"water". He commented that they'd modelled the hypothetical oceans, by
taking something intended to model oceanic behaviour and changing
virtually every parameter in it, and that the eventual result was that
they expected to get waves which were much larger, but also much slower,
than on Earth; I think a figure quoted was about five? times the height,
but spaced significantly further apart.

Not quite tides, but...

--
-Andrew Gray

Craig Fink wrote:
Just wondering how big the tides on Titan might be?

Maybe they're huge?

Low gravity in conjunction with a really big moon called Saturn. After all
motion is relative. ;-)

Well, they would be. Or, they are, but they don't move much.
Titan is tidally locked to Saturn. However, it does undergo
libration due to a slightly elliptical orbit.

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 |

Craig Fink wrote:
Low gravity in conjunction with a really big moon called Saturn.
After all
motion is relative. ;-)

But relative to Titan, Saturn doesn't move. Being tidally (!) locked.
-jake

In message
Craig Fink wrote:

Just wondering how big the tides on Titan might be?

Maybe they're huge?

Approximately 0.5 * sqrt(f*ckall) most likely. As with most moons,
Titan is rotationally locked so any tidal bulge will be fixed at one
point.

Anthony

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 05:15:00 +0000, Henry Spencer wrote:

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. Titan oceans had to
be either fairly deep and essentially land-free, or broken up into
multiple unconnected regional oceans.)


Yes, but it's not always tide-locked. Anytime that there is a significant
impact, one that might cause a large crater, it changes the velocity of
Titan's orbit (changing it's orbital period) and changes Titan's angular
momentum (rotation rate). Now the tidal bulge is going to start moving
very slowly round and round Titan until all the energy is used up and it
becomes tide-locked again. Then the next impact, and the next.

If the tidal bulge is really large, it could be like an "ocean tide" where
the entire ocean goes round and round the moon very slowly. A new form of
erosion, with "tidal rivers".

Still wondering exactly how big Titan's tidal bulge is?

Craig Fink

Anthony Frost wrote:
In message
Craig Fink wrote:

Just wondering how big the tides on Titan might be?

Maybe they're huge?

| Approximately 0.5 * sqrt(f*ckall) most likely.
What happens if one, but not both, of f or ckall are negative?

Craig Fink wrote:

Just wondering how big the tides on Titan might be?

Maybe they're huge?

Depends on how deep that the Titanian oceans are... or maybe they are
just shallow lakes a few feet deep.