The fact that China just retrieved rocks from the dark side of the moon confuses me. Does the moon rotate in the same manner as Earth does so we never see the “dark” side of the moon?
In: Planetary Science
Tidal locking is actually extremely common in the universe! Especially when the orbiting body is way smaller than the host. Most of the moons in the solar system are tidally locked, and Pluto and its moon are both locked to each other.
Lots of exoplanets are most likely tidally locked to their stars. Mercury *almost* is; it’s locked in a 3:2 resonance where it spins 3 times in 2 years.
Planets/moons can also very frequently get into resonances with each other. For example, the 3 biggest moons of Jupiter are locked into a 1:2:4 ratio of orbits, and Neptune will always complete 2 orbits in the time it takes Pluto to complete 3.
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