Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Oct 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010dps....42.2725s&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #42, #27.25
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
We formulate the lifetime of hypothetical moons orbiting extrasolar planets consider both stellar and lunar tides. Previous work (Barnes & O'Brien, 2002) neglected lunar tides, effectively limiting their solution's applicability to systems with moon masses much less than that of the planet mass. Thus the moon lifetimes that we calculate are applicable to newly-discovered Neptune-mass planets and super-Earths. We set a system of the differential equations for the rotational rate and mean motion of the planet and the mean motion of the moon using tidal theory. When we solve the systems of the differential equations numerically, we find three types of solutions. We then derive a formula that estimates the moon's longevity for each solution. We simulate numerous situations to verify each equation. Then, we compare the lifetime of the moon(s) from the scenarios to the time window each solution is legitimate. This model can calculate the life time of the moons precisely by following these steps.
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