By Tidal Effects
An orbit can also decay by tidal effects when the orbiting body is large enough to raise a significant tidal bulge on the body it is orbiting and is either in a retrograde orbit or is below the synchronous orbit. The resulting tidal interaction saps momentum from the orbiting body and transfers it to the primary's rotation, lowering the orbit's altitude until frictional effects come into play.
Examples of satellites undergoing tidal orbital decay are Mars' moon Phobos, Neptune's moon Triton, and the extrasolar planet TrES-3.
Read more about this topic: Orbital Decay
Famous quotes containing the words tidal and/or effects:
“And now it is once more the tidal wave
That when it was swept by, leaves summits stained.
Oh, blood will out. It cannot be contained.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Perspective, as its inventor remarked, is a beautiful thing. What horrors of damp huts, where human beings languish, may not become picturesque through aerial distance! What hymning of cancerous vices may we not languish over as sublimest art in the safe remoteness of a strange language and artificial phrase! Yet we keep a repugnance to rheumatism and other painful effects when presented in our personal experience.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)