Related papers: Origin of Hyperion and Saturn's Rings in A Two-Sta…

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…

Lainey et al. (2012), by re-analyzing long-baseline astrometry of Saturn's moons, have found that the moons' tidal evolution is much faster than previously thought, implying an order of magnitude stronger tidal dissipation within Saturn.…

The dynamics of the outer regular satellites of Saturn are driven primarily by the outward migration of Titan, but several independent constraints on Titan's migration are difficult to reconcile with the current resonant orbit of the small…

We explore the past evolution of Saturn's moons using direct numerical integrations. We find that the past Tethys-Dione 3:2 orbital resonance predicted in standard models likely did not occur, implying that the system is less evolved than…

Here we present the current state of knowledge on the long-term evolution of Saturn's moon system due to tides within Saturn. First we provide some background on tidal evolution, orbital resonances and satellite tides. Then we address in…

The origin and long-term evolution of Saturn's rings is still an unsolved problem in modern planetary science. In this chapter we review the current state of our knowledge on this long-standing question for the main rings (A, Cassini…

While numerous planetary and asteroid satellites show evidence for non-trivial rotation states, none are as emblematic as Hyperion, which has long been held as the most striking example of chaotic spin-orbit evolution in the Solar System.…

We simulate the collision of precursor icy moons analogous to Dione and Rhea as a possible origin for Saturn's remarkably young rings. Such an event could have been triggered a few hundred million years ago by resonant instabilities in a…

Saturn possesses a dynamically rich system containing numerous moons and impressive rings. Whether the rings of Saturn are much younger than the planet itself has been a long-open question; more recently a young age has been proposed for…

The dynamical features of the irregular satellites of the giant planets argue against an in-situ formation and are strongly suggestive of a capture origin. Since the last detailed investigations of their dynamics, the total number of…

The formation and orbital evolution of Saturn's inner mid-sized moons are still debated. The most puzzling aspects are 1) how the Tethys-Dione pair and the Mimas-Enceladus pair passed through their strong 3:2 mean-motion resonances during…

The disruption of an icy moon in a collision with an interloping comet a few hundred million years ago is a simple way to create Saturn's rings. A ring parent moon with a mass comparable to Mimas could be trapped in mean motion resonance…

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.…

The origin of rings around giant planets remains elusive. Saturn's rings are massive and made of 90-95% of water ice. In contrast, the much less massive rings of Uranus and Neptune are dark and likely to have higher rock fraction. Here we…

The hypothesis of a recent origin of Saturn's rings and its mid-sized moons is actively debated. It was suggested that a proto-Rhea and a proto-Dione might have collided recently, giving birth to the modern system of mid-sized moons. It is…

With recent advances in the modeling of the solar system giant planets, rapid progress has been made in understanding the remaining questions pertaining to their formation and evolution. However, this progress has largely neglected the…

Aims: It has recently been shown that the fast migration of Titan could be responsible for the current 26.7{\deg}-tilt of Saturn's spin axis. We aim to quantify the level of generality of this result and to measure the most likely sets of…

The origin of Saturn\' s massive ring system is still unknown. Two popular scenarios - the tidal splitting of passing comets and the collisional destruction of a satellite - rely on a high cometary flux in the past. In the present paper we…

The origin of Saturn's rings has been debated for decades. Measurements from Voyager and Cassini have suggested that the rings could be as young as ~100 Myr and composed of nearly pure water ice. Several scenarios have been proposed to…

The origin of Saturn's inner mid-sized moons (Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione and Rhea) and Saturn's rings is debated. Charnoz et al. (2010) introduced the idea that the smallest inner moons could form from the spreading of the rings' edge…