Accelerated axial precession to synchronize with orbital period?

Question

Visiting from worldbuilding, where I asked a question but have received conflicting answers, where I hope to get some clarification.

I'm trying to visualize an arrangement where a planet, that is not tidally locked to its star and without violating habitability. Could possess an axial tilt and precession frequency that synchronizes with the solar year. The goal being that one pole is always facing away from the star, the other being in perpetual light, and effectively eliminating seasons. The arrangement need not be permanent but be stable for somewhere in the neighborhood of a few tens of thousands of years, the longer the better.

My concern as one comment suggested was that there is a allot of energy in this system. Where the Earth does process this way the cycle is geologically long. Compressing a cycle where on earth is ~27,000 years down to one feels dodgy.

Or that something that could induce this sort of behavior would negate the possibility that any advanced life could survive or evolve within a timeframe where this degree of procession is present.

Please take any liberty you would like in your answer, just try to stay within the spirit of the above conditions. I'm open to nearly anything, orbital distance or the existence or absence of a moon etc.

Answer 1

The goal being that one pole is always facing away from the star, the other being in perpetual light, and effectively eliminating seasons

I'm afraid given the laws of motion the circumstance that you describe is not possible. Not just improbable, but inherently impossible.

In astrophysics:

In the case of the Earth:
The Earth has an equatorial bulge (the equatorial radius is about 20 kilometers larger than the polar radius, on an overall radius of about 6400 kilometer.) The equatorial bulge is there because the Earth is rotating.

In the case of a perfect sphere the center of gravitational attraction coincides with the geometrical center. Due to the Earth's equatorial bulge the center of gravitational attraction is slightly displaced relative to the geometrical center. Because of that displacement: the gravity from the Sun tends to bring the plane of the Earth's equator in alignment with the Earths orbital plane. That torque due to the Sun's gravity sustains the Earth's gyroscopic precession.

The gyroscopic precession of a celestial body can only be very slow.
In the case of the Earth the the duration of the precession cycle is 26000 Earth years.

About gyroscopic precession in general:
The relation between rate of rotation of a body and its rate of gyroscopic precession is that they are in inverse proportion. That is: for a given amount of torque: if you increase the rate of rotation the duration of the corresponding precession cycle is longer. Conversely: for a slower rotation rate the corresponding precession rate is faster.

In the case of celestial bodies the following relation comes into play: The extent of the equatorial bulge correlates with the rotation rate; the smaller the rotation rate, the smaller the equatorial bulge.

The smaller the equatorial bulge, the smaller the torque that arises from the Sun's gravity.

The smaller the torque, the slower the rate of precession.

So:
You just can't win.

With a fast rotation rate of the hypothetical planet the duration of the precession cycle is thousands of times the length of the year because with a fast rotation rate of a gyroscope a slow rate of precession is sufficient to act in opposition to the torque.

With a slow rotation rate of the hypothetical planet the duration of the precession cycle is thousands of times the length of the year because the torque is small.

Summerizing:
Given the laws of motion: within the realm of possibilities there is no combination such that the duration of the precession cycle is equal to the duration of the year of that planet.

About the inverse relation between rate of rotation and rate of gyroscopic precession:
Here is how we can recognize that in the case of a spinning top:
The spinning top is spun up to a high angular velocity and is then carefully released, with the axis of rotation close to vertical. The initial rate of precession is slow. As the spinning top is losing angular velocity due to air friction the rate of precession is increasing.
Also: as the spinning top is losing angular velocity the center of mass of the spinning top descends. As the spinning top is losing angular velocity the rate of precession is increasing (the kinetic energy for the precession velocity is provided by release of potential energy as the center of mass descends.)

There is a 2012 answer by me with explanation of the mechanics of gyroscopic precession

Answer 2

Tidally locked sounds like your best bet.

It took like billions of year to evolve on Earth. So it sounds like life arrives in spaceships to your planet and stays for a while.

You might explore a planet that orbits a binary pair or triplet. Perhaps a star orbits a really big star, and a planet sits at one of the Lagrange points.

You might consider a planet in an elongated comet like 20000 year orbit of a really big star. It goes from too hot to too cold, but there is a period where the temperature is reasonable.

You might consider a free floating planet in a dense cluster.

Really big stars have a life span of millions of years. Not really long enough for a planet to form. Perhaps one drifted in from interstellar space.