Physics
Scientific paper
May 2001
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001agusm...p41b01m&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2001, abstract #P41B-01
Physics
5450 Orbital And Rotational Dynamics, 5455 Origin And Evolution
Scientific paper
A coplanar, three-body (sun, planet, planetoid) numerical simulation program is used to assess the conditions under which a 0.5 moon-mass rocky planetoid can be captured by a mercury-mass planet. The program uses a 4th-order Runge-Kutta integration scheme and has an energy dissipation subroutine that operates within 20 planet radii. The variables in the calculation are (1) the displacement Love number (h) for the planetoid, (2) the specific dissipation factors (Q) for the planetoid (Q=1 for the initial encounter and Q=10 for all subsequent encounters), (3) the eccentricity of the planetoid's orbit, (4) the planet anomaly (initial position of the planet in its orbit), and (5) the planetoid anomaly (initial position of the planetoid relative to the planet). The constant values for this set of calculations are (1) a circular planet orbit, (2) a Q value of 100 the planet, (3) an h value of 0.7 for the planet, (4) a pericenter radius of 1.81 mercury radii for the initial encounter of an encounter sequence, and (5) an initial distance of separation of 700 mercury radii (well beyond the limits of the Hill sphere). In general, we find that proper orientations for stable capture can occur from an orbit slightly larger or slightly smaller than that of the orbit of planet mercury and in either prograde and retrograde orientations. With the Q values given above the minimum h value for capture into a prograde orbit is about 0.75 and that for capture into a retrograde orbit is about 0.30. Since the upper limit of h for a warm 0.5 lunar-like planetoid would be about 0.3, we consider prograde capture of such a body to be physically impractical. But retrograde gravitational capture of a 0.5 moon-mass body is physically possible when planet mercury is in a circular orbit. The geometry of the zones for stable retrograde capture are long (over 240 degrees of planet anomaly) but narrow (about 0.06 percent of planetoid eccentricity).
Malcuit Robert J.
Winters Ronald R.
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