English

Dynamical derivation of Bode's law

Astrophysics 2009-11-07 v1

Abstract

In a planetary or satellite system, idealized as n small bodies in initially coplanar, concentric orbits around a large central body, obeying Newtonian point-particle mechanics, resonant perturbations will cause dynamical evolution of the orbital radii except under highly specific mutual relationships, here derived analytically apparently for the first time. In particular, the most stable situation is achieved (in this idealized model) only when each planetary orbit is roughly twice as far from the Sun as the preceding one, as observed empirically already by Titius (1766) and Bode (1778) and used in both the discoveries of Uranus (1781) and the Asteroid Belt (1801). ETC.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0209276,
  title  = {Dynamical derivation of Bode's law},
  author = {Robert W. Bass},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0209276},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

27 pages

R2 v1 2026-07-22T08:14:49.895Z