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I think the explanation is wrong: wikipedia offers a completely different explanation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_locking.

Planets can become tidally locked to the sun- mercury is. Probably the timescale required for the other planets is just much longer

EDIT: Apparently mercury isn't actually tidally locked to the sun, TIL



I don't see how my ELI5 disagrees with the wikipedia article.


wikipedia's explanation works for uniform bodies, yours doesn't. And since tidal bulges seem to be symmetric, there's no away to explain away the deformation as making one side heavier


I don't think their explanation works for uniform bodies.




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