CaltechAUTHORS
Published December 2003 | Version Published
Journal Article Open

Origin of chaos in the Prometheus–Pandora system

Creators

  • 1. ROR icon Institute for Advanced Study
  • 2. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 3. ROR icon Jet Propulsion Lab

Abstract

We demonstrate that the chaotic orbits of Prometheus and Pandora are due to interactions associated with the 121:118 mean motion resonance. Differential precession splits this resonance into a quartet of components equally spaced in frequency. Libration widths of the individual components exceed the splitting resulting in resonance overlap which causes the chaos. A single degree of freedom model captures the essential features of the chaotic dynamics. Mean motions of Prometheus and Pandora wander chaotically in zones of width 1.8 deg yr^−1 and 3.1 deg yr^−1, respectively.

Additional Information

Author preprint. This research was supported by NASA Planetary Geology and Geophysics grant 344-30-53-02 and by NSF grant AST-0098301.

Attached Files

Published - GOLicarus03b.pdf

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Additional details

Identifiers

Eprint ID
2431
DOI
10.1016/j.icarus.2003.09.002
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:GOLicarus03b

Related works

Describes
10.1016/j.icarus.2003.09.002 (DOI)
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0307259 (URL)

Funding

NASA Planetary Geology and Geophysics
344-30-53-02
NSF
AST-0098301

Dates

Created
2006-04-04
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2021-11-08
Created from EPrint's last_modified field

Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
TAPIR , Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences (GPS)