How is tidal force not lethal to humans?

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Tidal forces have enough power to literally tear planets and moons apart over millions of years. Which is understandable, because it’s a planet / moon. But humans and our tech do not have that level of durability. Yet we can remain in orbit practically indefinitely with little to no consideration about tidal force being a threat. Why is that?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Tidal forces are the effects of gravity of an object being stronger on the part of another object that is closest to it than on the parts of it father away.

Gravity pulls thing together, but its force decreases with distances. Objects closer to the center of gravity get pulled down stronger than objects father away. Parts of an object close to the center get pulled stronger that father away parts. That difference is what makes tides.

If you have strong enough tidal forces it can totally tear a human body apart.

However in most circumstances the difference between the gravitational acceleration of your head and feet is going to be so small that it doesn’t really matter.

Planets and moons are much bigger than people and mostly held together by gravity so tidal forces are much worse on them.

If the moon were to be much closer to the earth than it actually is, the difference between the gravity on its nearside and its farside would be bigger than its own gravity holding it together and it would be pulled apart into a ring like Saturn has.

This distance is called the Roche Limit.

But it only is a thing for objects big enough to be held together by their own gravity.

Humans are not held together by their own gravity. We are held together by our skin and muscles and bones and so on which are mostly held together by chemistry rather than gravity.

Of course if the tidal forces were much bigger a human could also be pulled apart.

So if you ever encounter a singularity don’t get too close to the event horizon or the gravity acting on the part of your body closest to the singularity will be so different from the gravity acting on the part of your body farthest from it that it will pull you apart.

You will die of other things long before that most likely but you still will get ripped apart.

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