Quantification of Tides in Giant Planets from Observations
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
2026-03-03 v1
Abstract
Quantifying tidal effects on giant planets has recently made significant advances, thanks in particular to the Cassini space probe. During its thirteen-year orbit around Saturn, numerous measurements from different instruments made it possible to characterize fundamental parameters such as Saturn\'s Love number and quality factor at different frequencies. In this article, we summarize the various measurements and methods that have allowed to arrive at such a result, as well as the extrapolations that can be deduced for other systems. More generally, the state of the art concerning the four giant planets of the Solar System is presented, as well as the case of exoplanets.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2603.01796,
title = {Quantification of Tides in Giant Planets from Observations},
author = {Valéry Lainey and Marco Zannoni and Vincent Robert and Tristan Guillot},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.01796},
year = {2026}
}