Quote:
Originally Posted by Nesti
I don't believe it requires to be Tidally Locked to do so. So long as the Earth is uniformly round and dense around the Equator (and it pretty much is), then the geodesic pathway the die travels will be uniform. Remember, the die is moving in a dead straight line with uniform motion through the geodesic. If the geodesic is curving around the Earth, then the die does not need to spin in order for the 6 to remain facing the Earth. Tidal Lock seems to be a slow acting phenomenon like a dynamic system finding equilibrium, but geodesic pathways are always there and are instantaneous.
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If the die is not rotating once per orbit, it can not always show the 6 face to all observers on the ground.
Suppose the die was not rotating, so one of the faces always pointed at say SXDF-XCLJ0218-0510 - the most distant known galaxy as at May 10 2010. From earth it would appear to be tumbling.