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Is the outer Solar System chaotic?

Astrophysics 2015-06-24 v1

Abstract

The existence of chaos in the system of Jovian planets has been in question for the past 15 years. Various investigators have found Lyapunov times ranging from about 5 millions years upwards to infinity, with no clear reason for the discrepancy. In this paper, we resolve the issue. The position of the outer planets is known to only a few parts in 10 million. We show that, within that observational uncertainty, there exist Lyapunov timescales in the full range listed above. Thus, the ``true'' Lyapunov timescale of the outer Solar System cannot be resolved using current observations.

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0702179,
  title  = {Is the outer Solar System chaotic?},
  author = {Wayne B. Hayes},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0702179},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

8 pages, 2 figures