Venus Should Be 'Locked' With One Side Facing The Sun. Here's Why It Isn't

When two bodies in space are close together enough, their gravity acts as a brake, slowing them until one's rotation 'locks' to match its orbit.

This superrotation causes the atmosphere to drag on the planetary surface – the result of which seems to be a slowing of the planet's rotation, as well as countering the grip of the Sun's gravity and preventing tidal locking.

The result is that Venus has the hottest surface of any body in the Solar System, bar the Sun, averaging around 482 degrees Celsius .."Standing on the surface of Venus would be like standing at the bottom of a very hot ocean. You couldn't breathe on it." Most of the exoplanets we find are very close to their host stars; the tools we use to search for them are much better at finding close worlds. Many of these worlds would, therefore, be tidally locked.

When looking for habitable exoplanets, one of the things astronomers look for is roughly Earth-sized objects. But just being Earth-sized is unlikely to be sufficient.

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