Related papers: The obliquity of Enceladus
Saturn's diffuse E ring consists of many tiny (micron and sub-micron) grains of water ice distributed between the orbits of Mimas and Titan. Various gravitational and non-gravitational forces perturb these particles' orbits, causing the…
The ultra-faint satellite galaxy Hercules has a strongly elongated and irregular morphology with detections of tidal features up to 1.3 deg (3 kpc) from its center. This suggests that Hercules may be dissolving under the Milky Way's…
Much of the geologic activity preserved on Europa's icy surface has been attributed to tidal deformation, mainly due to Europa's eccentric orbit. Although the surface is geologically young (30 - 80 Myr), there is little information as to…
High obliquity planets represent potentially extreme limits of terrestrial climate, as they exhibit large seasonality, a reversed annual-mean pole-to-equator gradient of stellar heating, and novel cryospheres. A suite of 3-D global climate…
The icy moons are in the focus of the exploration plans of the leading space agencies because of the indications of water-based life and geological activity observed in a number of these objects. In particular, the presence of geyser-like…
Observational data from the Cassini spacecraft are used to obtain a chemical model of ocean water on Enceladus. The model indicates that Enceladus' ocean is a Na-Cl-CO3 solution with an alkaline pH of ~11-12. The dominance of aqueous NaCl…
Tidal forces are important for understanding how close binary stars and compact exoplanetary systems form and evolve. However, tides are difficult to model and significant uncertainties exist about the strength of tides. Here, we…
Context. The 98{\deg}-obliquity of Uranus is commonly attributed to giant impacts that occurred at the end of the planetary formation. This picture, however, is not devoid of weaknesses. Aims. On a billion-year timescale, the tidal…
Water plumes erupting from the `tiger stripe' features on the south pole of Enceladus are thought to connect to a global subsurface ocean. Proposed origins for the initial stress necessary to form the `tiger stripes' include a giant impact,…
Most Neptune-mass planets in close-in orbits (orbital periods less than a few days) present nonzero eccentricity, typically around 0.15. This is somehow unexpected, as these planets undergo strong tidal dissipation that should circularize…
Ridge-and-trough terrain is a common landform on outer Solar System icy satellites. Examples include Ganymede's grooved terrain, Europa's gray bands, Miranda's coronae, and several terrains on Enceladus. The conditions associated with the…
Tidal dissipation in star-planet systems can occur through various mechanisms, among which is the elliptical instability. This acts on elliptically deformed equilibrium tidal flows in rotating fluid planets and stars, and excites inertial…
Tidal interactions between Planet and its satellites are known to be the main phenomena, which are determining the orbital evolution of the satellites. We suggest in the current research to take into consideration the additional well-known…
Earth-like planets have anelastic mantles, whereas giant planets may have anelastic cores. As for the fluid parts of a body, the tidal dissipation of such solid regions, gravitationally perturbed by a companion body, highly depends on its…
Recent analyses have revealed a mystery. The orbital period of the highly inflated hot Jupiter, WASP-12b, is decreasing rapidly. The rate of inspiral, however, is too fast to be explained by either eccentricity tides or equilibrium stellar…
Weak-temperature-gradient influences from the tropics and quasigeostrophic influences from the extratropics plausibly constrain the subtropical-mean static stability in terrestrial atmospheres. Because mean descent acting on this static…
This paper presents one analytical tidal theory for a viscoelastic multi-layered body with an arbitrary number of homogeneous layers. Starting with the static equilibrium figure, modified to include tide and differential rotation, and using…
We use the super Earth 55 Cnc e as a case study to address an observable effect of tidal heating. We investigate whether planet-planet interactions can force the eccentricity of this planet to a level affecting the eclipse depth observed…
It is debated whether close-in giant planets can form in-situ and if not, which mechanisms are responsible for their migration. One of the observable tests for migration theories is the current value of the angle between the stellar…
Recent analysis of scientific data from Cassini and earth-based observations gave evidence for a global ocean under a surrounding solid ice shell on Saturn's moon Enceladus. Images of Enceladus' South Pole showed several fissures in the ice…