Journal
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Volume 384, Issue 3, Pages 1211-1220Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2007.12795.x
Keywords
celestial mechanics; planets and satellites : individual : Saturn
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The chaotic orbital motion of Prometheus and Pandora, the 16th and 17th satellites of Saturn, is studied. Chaos in their orbital motion, as found by Goldreich & Rappaport and Renner & Sicardy, is due to interaction of resonances in the resonance multiplet corresponding to the 121:118 commensurability of the mean motions of the satellites. It is shown rigorously that the system moves in adiabatic regime. The Lyapunov time (the 'time horizon of predictability' of the motion) is calculated analytically and compared to the available numerical-experimental estimates. For this purpose, a method of analytical estimation of the maximum Lyapunov exponent in the perturbed pendulum model of non-linear resonance is applied. The method is based on the separatrix map theory. An analytical estimate of the width of the chaotic layer is made as well, based on the same theory. The ranges of chaotic diffusion in the mean motion are shown to be almost twice as big compared to previous estimates for both satellites.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available