Related papers: Spin-orbit gravitational locking -- an effective p…
Mercury is entrapped in a 3:2 resonance: it rotates on its axis three times for every two revolutions it makes around the Sun. It is generally accepted that this is due to the large value of the eccentricity of its orbit. However, the…
The rotation of Mercury is presently captured in a 3/2 spin-orbit resonance with the orbital mean motion. The capture mechanism is well understood as the result of tidal interactions with the Sun combined with planetary perturbations.…
The dynamical evolution of terrestrial planets resembling Mercury in the vicinity of spin-orbit resonances is investigated using comprehensive harmonic expansions of the tidal torque taking into account the frequency-dependent quality…
The planet Mercury is locked in a spin-orbit resonance where it rotates three times about its spin axis for every two orbits about the Sun. The current explanation for this unique state assumes that the initial rotation of this planet was…
While it is accepted that the eccentricity of Mercury (0.206) favours entrapment into the 3:2 spin-orbit resonance, open is the question how and when the capture took place. A recent work by Makarov (2012) has demonstrated that trapping…
Mercury is the unique known planet that is situated in a 3:2 spin-orbit resonance nowadays. Observations and models converge to the same conclusion: the planet is presently deeply trapped in the resonance and situated at the Cassini state…
This work investigates different models of rotational dynamics of two rigid bodies with the shape of an ellipsoid, moving under their gravitational influence. The focus of this study is on their behavior, their linear stability, and…
The 3:2 spin-orbit resonance between the rotational and orbital motions of Mercury results from a functional dependance on a tidal friction adding to a non-zero eccentricity with a permanent asymmetry in the equatorial plane of the planet.…
We study the spin evolution of close-in planets in multi-body systems and present a very general formulation of the spin-orbit problem. This includes a simple way to probe the spin dynamics from the orbital perturbations, a new method for…
We study the dynamics of two homogeneous rigid ellipsoids subject to their mutual gravitational influence. We assume that the spin axis of each ellipsoid coincides with its shortest physical axis and is perpendicular to the orbital plane.…
Close-by planets may excite various kinds of oscillations in their host stars through their time-varying tidal potential. Magnetostrophic oscillations with a frequency much smaller than the stellar rotation frequency have recently been…
Recent works suggest that, in multiplanetary systems, a close-in exoplanet can sometimes avoid becoming tidally locked to its host star if it is captured into a secular spin-orbit resonance with a companion planet. In such a resonance, the…
Spin-orbit coupling is widespread in binary asteroid systems and it has been widely studied for the case of ellipsoidal secondary. Due to angular momentum exchange, dynamical coupling is stronger when the orbital and rotational angular…
The rotation period of some planet-hosting stars appears to be in close commensurability with the orbital period of their close-by planets. A model is proposed to interpret such a phenomenon based on the excitation of resonant oscillations…
This paper deals with the application of the creep tide theory (Ferraz-Mello, CeMDA 116, 109, 2013) to the rotation of close-in satellites, Mercury, close-in exoplanets and their host stars. The solutions show two extreme cases: close-in…
We used recently produced Solar System ephemerides, which incorporate two years of ranging observations to the MESSENGER spacecraft, to extract the secular orbital elements for Mercury and associated uncertainties. As Mercury is in a stable…
The upcoming space missions, MESSENGER and BepiColombo with onboard instrumentation capable of measuring the rotational parameters stimulate the objective to reach an accurate theory of the rotational motion of Mercury. For obtaining the…
This HDR-thesis is devoted to the study of the rotation of the natural satellites of the giant planets and of Mercury. These bodies have a resonant rotation. Most of the natural satellites rotate synchronously, showing the same hemisphere…
The purpose of this work is to study the phenomenon of tidal locking in a pedagogical framework by analyzing the effective gravitational potential of a two-body system with two spinning objects. It is shown that the effective potential of…
The aim of this article is to propose a model, that is a planar version of the Full Two-Body Problem, and discuss the existence and stability of a relevant periodic solution. Consider two homogeneous ellipsoids orbiting around each other in…