Tidal Locking

We have learned that large stars are not good candidates for life because they evolve so quickly. Now let's take a look at low-mass stars. Reset the simulator and set the initial star mass to 0.3 M. Drag the planet in to the CHZ.

Question 12: (2 point) Notice that the planet is shown with a dashed line through its middle. What has happened is that the planet is so close to its star that is has become tidally locked due to gravitational interactions. This is analogous to Earth's moon which always presents the same side towards Earth. For a planet orbiting a star, this means one side would get very hot and the other side would get very cold. (However, a thick atmosphere could theoretically spread the heat around the planet as happens on Venus. In answering the following questions, please put aside this possibility.)