Related papers: Orbital Dynamics of Atlas (S XV): Its Current Orbi…
With the success of the Cassini-Huygens mission, the dynamic complexity surrounding natural satellites of Saturn began to be elucidated. New ephemeris could be calculated with a higher level of precision, which made it possible to study in…
We revisit the dynamics of Atlas. Using Cassini ISS astrometric observations spanning February 2004 to August 2013, Cooper et al. (2015) found evidence that Atlas is currently perturbed by both a 54:53 corotation eccentricity resonance…
We present numerically-derived orbits and mass estimates for the inner Saturnian satellites, Atlas, Prometheus, Pandora, Janus and Epimetheus from a fit to 2580 new Cassini ISS astrometric observations spanning February 2004 to August 2013.…
We revisit the dynamics of Prometheus and Pandora, two small moons flanking Saturn's F ring. Departures of their orbits from freely precessing ellipses result from mutual interactions via their 121:118 mean motion resonance. Motions are…
The Cassini spacecraft discovered many close-in small satellites in Saturnian system, and several of them exhibit exotic orbital states due to interactions with Mimas and the oblateness of the planet. This work is devoted to Methone, which…
Possible rotation states of two satellites of Saturn, Prometheus (S16) and Pandora (S17), are studied by means of numerical experiments. The attitude stability of all possible modes of synchronous rotation and the motion close to these…
Aegaeon (S/2008 S 1) is the last satellite discovered by the Cassini spacecraft at the end of the 2000s. Like the satellites Methone and Anthe, it is involved in mean motion resonance with the mid-sized Mimas. In this work, we give a…
We demonstrate that the chaotic orbits of Prometheus and Pandora are due to interactions associated with the 121:118 mean motion resonance. Differential precession splits this resonance into a quartet of components equally spaced in…
The dynamical evolution of the Prometheus and Pandora pair of satellites is chaotic, with a short 3.3 years Lyapunov time. It is known that the anti-alignment of the apses line of Prometheus and Pandora, which occurs every 6.2 years, is a…
Saturn's mid-sized moons (satellites) have a puzzling orbital configuration with trapping in mean-motion resonances with every other pairs (Mimas-Tethys 4:2 and Enceladus-Dione 2:1). To reproduce their current orbital configuration on the…
Recent HST images of the Saturnian satellites Prometheus and Pandora show that their longitudes deviate from predictions of ephemerides based on Voyager images. Currently Prometheus is lagging and Pandora leading these predictions by…
Natural satellite systems present a large variety of orbital configurations in the solar system. While some are clearly the result of known processes, others still have largely unexplained eccentricity and inclination values. Iapetus has a…
Images obtained by the Cassini spacecraft of the region just beyond Saturn's main rings reveal a previously unreported narrow and dusty ringlet that has dynamical connections with both Saturn's small satellite Prometheus and the F ring. The…
In this paper, we introduce a simplified model to understand the location of Saturn's F ring. The model is a planar restricted five-body problem defined by the gravitational field of Saturn, including its second zonal harmonic $J_2$, the…
We report new spectroscopic and interferometric observations of the Pleiades binary star Atlas, which played an important role nearly three decades ago in settling the debate over the distance to the cluster from ground-based and…
During the thirteen years in orbit around Saturn before its final plunge, the Cassini spacecraft provided more than ten thousand astrometric measurements. Such large amounts of accurate data enable the search for extremely faint signals in…
Mutual gravitational interactions between the five major Uranian satellites raise small quasi-periodic fluctuations on their orbital elements. At the same time, tidal interactions between the satellites and the planet induce a slow outward…
Context: As a result of Titan's migration and Saturn's probable capture in secular spin-orbit resonance, recent works show that Saturn's obliquity could be steadily increasing today and may reach large values in the next billions of years.…
Numerical simulations carried out over the past decade suggest that the orbits of the Global Navigation Satellite Systems are unstable, resulting in an apparent chaotic growth of the eccentricity. Here we show that the irregular and…
The obliquity of a planet is the tilt between its equator and its orbital plane. Giant planets are expected to form with near-zero obliquities. After its formation, some dynamical mechanism must therefore have tilted Saturn up to its…