tidal force

American  

noun

1. the gravitational pull exerted by a celestial body that raises the tides on another body within the gravitational field, dependent on the varying distance between the bodies.

---

tidal force Scientific  

1. A secondary effect of the gravitational forces between two objects orbiting each other, such as the Earth and the Moon, that tends to elongate each body along the axis of a line connecting their centers. Tidal forces are responsible for the fluctuation of the tides as well as for the synchronous rotation of certain moons as they orbit their planets.

---

Example Sentences

A recent study led by the research group of Professor Jane Lixin DAI of the Department of Physics at HKU proposed that a Pop III star can be torn apart into pieces by tidal force if it wanders into the vicinity of a massive black hole.

From Science Daily

Because of its distance, Venus exerts the largest tidal force on Earth, although it’s just a small fraction compared with our moon.

From Washington Post

At lower masses, as is the case with black holes like Sagittarius A*, which weighs “only” four million suns, the strong tidal force of the black hole spaghettifies stars when they come close to it.

From Scientific American

After less than a day, the astronaut’s body will reach the singularity and be torn apart by gravitational tidal force.

From Scientific American

As it turns out, the habitability distance is dangerously close to the region where the planet would be destroyed by the gravitational tidal force from the white dwarf.

From Scientific American