Statistics – Applications
Scientific paper
May 2008
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008dda....39.1302z&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DDA meeting #39, #13.02
Statistics
Applications
Scientific paper
Tides raised by the primary on a synchronized satellite result in heating if the satellite is in an eccentric orbit (Peale et al. 1979). The satellite's orbit, however, is circularized by tidal torques. The corresponding eccentricity damping timescale is usually short compared to the age of the Solar System (a few to several hundred million years for the jovian and saturnian moons). Thus tidal heating scenarios generally require additional mechanisms to maintain sufficient eccentricities, for which orbital mean-motion resonances are natural candidates (e.g. Peale et al. 1979, Showman et al. 1997). The degree of tidal heating depends on the internal structure of the satellite, which in turn depends on the body's thermal evolution, resulting in complicated feedbacks (Ojakangas and Stevenson 1986, Showman et al. 1997, Hussmann and Spohn 2002). We investigate the interaction between mean-motion resonances and satellite thermal evolution, with applications to Saturn's icy moons.
Previous studies showed that the competition between resonances and tidal circularization can lead to either an equilibrium state (Yoder and Peale 1981, Meyer and Wisdom 2007) or an oscillation around the equilibrium (Ojakagas and Stevenson 1986). Our preliminary results imply that in some circumstances, however, such an equilibrium does not exist, resulting in large orbital eccentricities and high transient tidal heating rates. We also study the eccentricity evolution near resonant trappings during the heating process, and discover that in many situations, a first-order resonant encounter excites the eccentricities of both orbits simultaneously. We apply our results to Saturn's moon Enceladus and Tethys, together with thermal models for these satellites, to investigate the origin of observed features on their surfaces.
Chen Ercai
Nimmo Francis
Zhang Ke
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