leading edge of moons?

"heron stone" wrote in message ...
Thanks everyone for your answers.

This is all news to me.

For some unknown reason, I had just assumed that Luna's
orbital behavior was an aberration of our "special" Earth.
I guess we're not all that special... good!

Well, you know what they say about assumptions...

Is there some simple generalization that can be made
about moons... that, with the exceptions of x, y, and z
all moons (over X diameter) in the Solar system present
the same face (are tidally locked) to their planets?

Generally, planets and their major satellites are of the same
age, and moons have had equal (i.e. enough) time to tidally
lock to their planets. Time and rate of rotation are the main
factors here -- diameter has little to do with it. Hyperion is
considered either a relatively recent knock-off from another
moon, or a recently captured KBO.

Rick