XPost: sci.space.policy   
   From: henry@spsystems.net   
      
   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       | henry@spsystems.net   
      
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