function tidalProxy
universe/src/archetype.ts:111
How hard a parent flexes a moon, dimensionless and relative.
(M_parent / M_body) · (R_body / a)³ · e. The mass ratio and the cube are the
tidal-bulge scaling; the eccentricity is what makes the bulge move, which is
where the heat comes from — a perfectly circular orbit raises a static bulge
and dissipates nothing.
It under-calls two real cases and the honest thing is to say which. A body warmed by an obliquity tide rather than an eccentricity one reads as dead (Triton, whose orbit is circular to five places and whose surface is ten million years old), and so does one still cooling from a capture or a giant impact. Neither is derivable from six orbital elements, and inventing a flag for them would be inventing the answer.
- bodyBody
- Undocumented
- parentMassnumber
- Undocumented
Returnsnumber