cap·tured rotation

(kăp′chərd)

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Mentioned in

synchronous rotation

References in periodicals archive

The idea of Mercury having a captured rotation was due to direct observational evidence collected during the late 19th century by G.

The 'libration zones' of Mercury: the last stand

Schiaparelli had every reason to suppose that tidal friction with the Sun had also produced a "captured rotation" for Mercury, locking its day into the period of its year--87.9693 days.

The Mercury mirage: one of Giovanni Schiaparelli's most celebrated telescopic discoveries is reconsidered in the light of modern CCD images

Darwin coined the terms "tidal friction" and "captured rotation" to describe this mechanism and its consequence.

Mesmerized by Mercury : With less than half its surface mapped by Mariner 10, much of Mercury remains as unknown today as it did in the time of Denning and Schiaparelli

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