From: LARRY KLAES (ljk4_at_msn.com)
Date: Mon Mar 05 2007 - 21:05:47 PST
Astrophysics, abstract
astro-ph/0703059
From: Nader Haghighipour [view email]
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2007 03:11:33 GMT (363kb)
Irregular Satellites of the Planets: Products of Capture in the Early Solar
System
Authors: David Jewitt, Nader Haghighipour
Comments: 51 pages, 17 figures, 5 tables, to appear in ARAA 2007
All four giant planets in the Solar system possess irregular satellites,
characterized by large, highly eccentric and/or inclined orbits that are
distinct from the nearly circular, uninclined orbits of the regular
satellites. This difference can be traced directly to different modes of
formation. Whereas the regular satellites grew by accretion within
circumplanetary disks the irregular satellites were captured from initially
heliocentric orbits at an early epoch. Recently, powerful survey
observations have greatly increased the number of known irregular
satellites, permitting a fresh look at the group properties of these objects
and motivating a re-examination of the mechanisms of capture. None of the
suggested mechanisms, including gas-drag, pull-down, and three-body capture,
convincingly fit the group characteristics of the irregular satellites. The
sources of the satellites also remain unidentified.
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0703059
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