Adiabatic chaos in the Prometheus-Pandora system

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

3

Celestial Mechanics, Planets And Satellites: Individual: Saturn

Scientific paper

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.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

Adiabatic chaos in the Prometheus-Pandora system does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Adiabatic chaos in the Prometheus-Pandora system, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Adiabatic chaos in the Prometheus-Pandora system will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-870667

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.