The rotation of planets hosting atmospheric tides: from Venus to habitable super-earths

Understand

The competition between the torques induced by solid and thermal tides drives the rotational dynamics of Venus-like planets and super-Earths orbiting in the habitable zone of low-mass stars.

• The tidal responses of the atmosphere and telluric core are related to their respective physical properties and strongly depend on the tidal frequency.
• The resulting torque determines the possible equilibrium states of the planet's spin.
• We compute here an analytic expression for the total tidal torque exerted on a Venus-like planet.