Back to Search Start Over

NOTE: Explaining why the Uranian satellites have equatorial prograde orbits despite the large planetary obliquity

Authors :
Morbidelli, Alessandro
Tsiganis, Kleomenis
Batygin, Konstantin
Crida, Aurelien
Gomes, Rodney
Source :
Icarus, 219, 737 (2012)
Publication Year :
2012

Abstract

We show that the existence of prograde equatorial satellites is consistent with a collisional tilting scenario for Uranus. In fact, if the planet was surrounded by a proto-satellite disk at the time of the tilting and a massive ring of material was temporarily placed inside the Roche radius of the planet by the collision, the proto-satellite disk would have started to precess incoherently around the equator of the planet, up to a distance greater than that of Oberon. Collisional damping would then have collapsed it into a thin equatorial disk, from which the satellites eventually formed. The fact that the orbits of the satellites are prograde requires Uranus to have had a non-negligible initial obliquity (comparable to that of Neptune) before it was finally tilted to 98 degrees.

Details

Database :
arXiv
Journal :
Icarus, 219, 737 (2012)
Publication Type :
Report
Accession number :
edsarx.1208.4685
Document Type :
Working Paper
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2012.03.025