Co-orbits and Tides

I've seen many questions about tides and tidal variations on a wide variety of interesting single star, multi star, single planet, binary planet, single moon, multiple moon, and even ring system combinations and variations.

I've also seen many questions about co-orbits including trojan, Lagrangian, horseshoe, and more exotic orbits.

But I was not able to find one about the tidal effects of horseshoe orbits, so here it is: What would tides be like on an Earthlike planet with a horseshoe orbital partner body?

For simplicity, let's just assume that it's actually Earth, and that the object in the horseshoe orbit with Earth is the Moon, with no other changes to them other than the new orbital configuration. Also, assume that the Moon's closest approach in this new orbit is the same as it's closest approach in it's current, actual, real life orbit.

EDIT An explanation of how often the Moon would approach Earth, to cause these tides to take effect, isn't necessary but would be interesting if you feel so inclined to include it. For this question, the minimum information is just: a description of how the tide coming in and going out for each approach of the Moon in this new configuration would be effectively different from how current tides come in and go out for an average tide cycle in real life. Things like how long does it take to come in, how long does it stay at high tide, how long to go back out to low tide, is high tide in this new configuration higher, lower or the same height as a real tide, etc.

EDIT 2 I'd guess that spring and neap tides would not be a thing, as I understand those to be when the moon is in line with, or opposite (respectively), the sun to either combine or counteract (respectively) each others' tidal effects, and this orbit would never cause them to line up. But I could be mistaken in my assumption.

posted almost 6 years ago

Dalila‭

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