Other
Scientific paper
Dec 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009agufm.p54a..06k&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2009, abstract #P54A-06
Other
[5465] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Rings And Dust, [6213] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Dust, [6265] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Planetary Rings, [6290] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Uranian Satellites
Scientific paper
Showalter and Lissauer announced the discovery of an outer ring system around Uranus in 2006, composed of the nu-ring and the mu-ring, after studying Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images. The HST observations were subsequently confirmed by images taken at the Keck observatory. A small moon (Mab), embedded in the mu-ring, was also detected (Showalter and Lissauer, 2006). Mab is the most likely source of the material in the mu-ring. Showalter and Lissauer (2006) demonstrate that the orbit of Mab around Uranus is poorly understood at present. The orbital positions derived from both Voyager flyby data (1986) and HST data (2003-2006) were compared with the positions derived from an orbital model, which included gravitational flattening of Uranus and interactions with other Uranian moons. It was discovered that, although the model successfully maps the motion of nine other Uranian moons, for Mab the fitting errors are six times larger. The origin and nature of this residual has yet to be explained. We used HNBody, a symplectic N-body integration package, to setup our model environment and run our simulations (Rauch and Hamilton, 2002). We studied whether including other moons in resonant orbits with Mab in the model can account for the apparent mismatch with the observations. We analyzed different configurations of the additional shepherding moons and studied their effects on the motion of Mab. We used a global optimization technique to find the optimal orbital elements for these additional moons such that their effect on Mab would match the observed discrepancy in its orbit, specifically the variation in its orbital eccentricity. Uranian outer ring system imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope (Showlater and Lissaeur, 2006)
Ambrosius B. A.
de Pater Imke
Kumar Kapil
Lissauer Jack . J.
Schrama E. J.
No associations
LandOfFree
The effect of resonant shepherding moons on the motion of Mab 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 The effect of resonant shepherding moons on the motion of Mab, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and The effect of resonant shepherding moons on the motion of Mab will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1774662