Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Oct 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011epsc.conf.1082c&link_type=abstract
EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2011, held 2-7 October 2011 in Nantes, France. http://meetings.copernicus.org/epsc-dps2011, p.1082
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
1
Scientific paper
Any ring around a planet viscously spreads (like any astrophysical disk in Keplerian rotation). Beyond the Roche limit, the tidal forces from the planet are (by definition) weaker than the self-gravity of the material. Thus, a spreading ring will give birth to satellites beyond the Roche limit. The resulting bodies are then repelled by tidal interactions with the rings, and migrate outwards. Here, we model this process in detail, and show that two regimes are possible : (i) one big Moon gathers all the material that crosses the Roche limit, (ii) a series of satellitesimals form, move away from the planet, merge, and so on, forming a chain of satellites of increasing mass and spacing with orbital radius. We find that these two regimes apply respectively to the ring that surrounded the Earth after the Moon forming impact, and to the system of Saturn - supporting the idea that the satellites of Saturn inside Titan's orbit could be born from the spreading of initially massive rings. This goes towards a new unified model of satellite formation.
Charnoz Sebastien
Crida Aurelien
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