Methinks there must be some analogy to the stabilization of a frisbee against wobbles if they don't become to severe: but since the initial wobble comes from something outside of the "airstream-frisbee" system, to coin a phrase -- (your throwing arm) -- the analogy is not exact.
Would this mean that given a sufficiently deformable smaller body, you could get chaotic motion over time, pumped by the tidal forces (think the famous resonance in that collapsing bridge...)?
Thanks for explaining.
Cheers!
Not ignoring you, gw; I'm still thinking about that! And I think there are lots of possibilities there, not the least of which is the basis for my first scifi novel! ;-)
Actually, I think it's a damned interesting idea but have no clue what the physics says about it. Thanks for the puzzle!