terry, a good read! I got confused with a line though
Planets close enough to the star for sufficient warmth will likely be tidally locked to the star
Why do planets close to red dwarfs have to be tidally locked?
By the way, the Blender animation looks cool!
Thank you @anevolvedmonkey . Tidal locking occurs as a result of torque being applied to the planet. Remember the gravitation force itself causes a bulge, which effectively becomes the handle in which the torque can be applied.
Now a typical red dwarf will have 1/10000 th the output of the sun, so to compensate for this output we would have to move the planet 100 times closer to the star (square law). This also means the tidal forces also increase 100 times. Now the mass of the red dwarf is smaller, so the tidal forces won't be 100x more, but more like 10-20x. But this is still a lot of extra tidal force.
Thanks for clearing this. I had the same issue. I always have problem assimilating astronomical topics. I just feel they are beyond me. Lol
I was hoping I made sense in my last response!
Yeah, you did