Constellations and the Night Sky

[Myranda]

I thought they were referring to the precession having a cycle of 1 year (rather than Earth's 26,000 year cycle), and the planetary rotation still being 1 day (speaking in approximates). So that the planet's north pole is perpetually pointed at the extended northern axis of its sun. The thought of that kind of speed makes me dizzy, but that's a problem I seem to have a lot in this thread.

Hmmm... okay I think I see how that's different but it still seems off. This is where it starts hurting even my brain, but I think that may result in the same bad situation where one side ends up getting overcooked and the other side frozen. It wouldn't be perpetual day/night like the tidal locking situation, but you'd still be dumping solar energy more into one hemisphere than the other all the time, creating an imbalance.

Still workin' on the Society logo.

[edit to include other replies]

Well, axial tilts can be strange business. After all Uranus is basically titled damn near 90º and rotates sideways.

I'd like to think it'd be possible to have 0º tilt, but not be tidally locked. On that note, doesn't a tidally locked body technically still rotate (ie: the RL moon)? And wouldn't a planet with no rotation have its 'day' simply last a 'year'?

Correct on all counts. A 90° tilt gives rise to extreme seasonal changes, almost as bad as the tidal locking but it at least flipflops over the course of a year.

And Mercury is a good example of almost zero tilt, it's only tilted 2°. It also has a weird 2:3 resonance thing going on with the Sun that isn't quite tidal locking but honestly I don't understand it completely so I'm not sure how to explain it. As weird and interesting as that is, it wouldn't factor in with Hydælyn.