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Tidal Locking: Spin-Down to Synchronous Rotation (2D)

Watch a moon's spin rate relax toward its orbital rate under simulated tidal friction — a live Keplerian orbit and an exponentially-damped spin integrator running side by side on a plain 2D canvas, with the physical libration that survives even after lock made directly visible.

Quantum Physics2DIntermediate60 FPS📱 Mobile-adapted⇄ 3D version

This 2D companion drives the same tidal-locking mechanics as the 3D version through a plain top-down canvas built for reading the physics rather than orbiting a scene: a side panel exposes the orbit's semi-major axis and eccentricity, the moon's starting spin rate as a multiple of the orbital rate, and the strength of tidal dissipation, while the moon's true Keplerian path and its independently-integrated spin angle run side by side. A bright marker fixed to the moon's crust turns green once it settles on pointing at the planet, and a live readout tracks spin rate, orbital rate, percent synchronization, and the physical libration in longitude — the small residual wobble that Kepler's second law guarantees even after the spin has fully locked.

⚙ Under the hood

2D top-down orbital mechanics lab: a genuine Keplerian orbit (true anomaly integrated via Kepler's second law) paired with an exponentially-relaxing spin rate under a weak-friction tidal-damping model, whose time constant grows with the fourth power of orbital distance — closer moons lock dramatically faster, as in reality.

tidal lockingorbital mechanicskepler's lawssynchronous rotationlibrationtidal dissipation

2D · HTML5 Canvas 2D · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install