Neptune's capture of its moon Triton in a binary-planet gravitational encounter

Triton is Neptune's principal satellite and is by far the largest retrograde satellite in the Solar System (its mass is approximately 40 per cent greater than that of Pluto). Its inclined and circular orbit lies between a group of small inner prograde satellites and a number of exterior irregular satellites with both prograde and retrograde orbits. This unusual configuration has led to the belief that Triton originally orbited the Sun before being captured in orbit around Neptune. Existing models for its capture, however, all have significant bottlenecks that make their effectiveness doubtful. Here we report that a three-body gravitational encounter between a binary system (of approximately 10(3)-kilometre-sized bodies) and Neptune is a far more likely explanation for Triton's capture. Our model predicts that Triton was once a member of a binary with a range of plausible characteristics, including ones similar to the Pluto-Charon pair.     

Chaos-assisted capture of irregular moons

It has been thought that the capture of irregular moons--with non-circular orbits--by giant planets occurs by a process in which they are first temporarily trapped by gravity inside the planet's Hill sphere (the region where planetary gravity dominates over solar tides). The capture of the moons is then made permanent by dissipative energy loss (for example, gas drag) or planetary growth. But the observed distributions of orbital inclinations, which now include numerous newly discovered moons, cannot be explained using current models. Here we show that irregular satellites are captured in a thin spatial region where orbits are chaotic, and that the resulting orbit is either prograde or retrograde depending on the initial energy. Dissipation then switches these long-lived chaotic orbits into nearby regular (non-chaotic) zones from which escape is impossible. The chaotic layer therefore dictates the final inclinations of the captured moons. We confirm this with three-dimensional Monte Carlo simulations that include nebular drag, and find good agreement with the observed inclination distributions of irregular moons at Jupiter and Saturn. In particular, Saturn has more prograde irregular moons than Jupiter, which we can explain as a result of the chaotic prograde progenitors being more efficiently swept away from Jupiter by its galilean moons.     

An abundant population of small irregular satellites around Jupiter

Irregular satellites have eccentric orbits that can be highly inclined or even retrograde relative to the equatorial planes of their planets. These objects cannot have formed by circumplanetary accretion, unlike the regular satellites that follow uninclined, nearly circular and prograde orbits. Rather, they are probably products of early capture from heliocentric orbits. Although the capture mechanism remains uncertain, the study of irregular satellites provides a window on processes operating in the young Solar System. Families of irregular satellites recently have been discovered around Saturn (thirteen members, refs 6, 7), Uranus (six, ref. 8) and Neptune (three, ref. 9). Because Jupiter is closer than the other giant planets, searches for smaller and fainter irregular satellites can be made. Here we report the discovery of 23 new irregular satellites of Jupiter, so increasing the total known population to 32. There are five distinct satellite groups, each dominated by one relatively large body. The groups were most probably produced by collisional shattering of precursor objects after capture by Jupiter.     

Discovery of 12 satellites of Saturn exhibiting orbital clustering.

The giant planets in the Solar System each have two groups of satellites. The regular satellites move along nearly circular orbits in the planet's orbital plane, revolving about it in the same sense as the planet spins. In contrast, the so-called irregular satellites are generally smaller in size and are characterized by large orbits with significant eccentricity, inclination or both. The differences in their characteristics suggest that the regular and irregular satellites formed by different mechanisms: the regular satellites are believed to have formed in an accretion disk around the planet, like a miniature Solar System, whereas the irregulars are generally thought to be captured planetesimals. Here we report the discovery of 12 irregular satellites of Saturn, along with the determinations of their orbits. These orbits, along with the orbits of irregular satellites of Jupiter and Uranus, fall into groups on the basis of their orbital inclinations. We interpret this result as indicating that most of the irregular moons are collisional remnants of larger satellites that were fragmented after capture, rather than being captured independently.     

Compositional maps of Saturn's moon Phoebe from imaging spectroscopy

The origin of Phoebe, which is the outermost large satellite of Saturn, is of particular interest because its inclined, retrograde orbit suggests that it was gravitationally captured by Saturn, having accreted outside the region of the solar nebula in which Saturn formed. By contrast, Saturn's regular satellites (with prograde, low-inclination, circular orbits) probably accreted within the sub-nebula in which Saturn itself formed. Here we report imaging spectroscopy of Phoebe resulting from the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft encounter on 11 June 2004. We mapped ferrous-iron-bearing minerals, bound water, trapped CO2, probable phyllosilicates, organics, nitriles and cyanide compounds. Detection of these compounds on Phoebe makes it one of the most compositionally diverse objects yet observed in our Solar System. It is likely that Phoebe's surface contains primitive materials from the outer Solar System, indicating a surface of cometary origin.     

Stellar encounters as the origin of distant Solar System objects in highly eccentric orbits

The Kuiper belt extends from the orbit of Neptune at 30 au to an abrupt outer edge about 50 au from the Sun. Beyond the edge is a sparse population of objects with large orbital eccentricities. Neptune shapes the dynamics of most Kuiper belt objects, but the recently discovered planet 2003 VB12 (Sedna) has an eccentric orbit with a perihelion distance of 70 au, far beyond Neptune's gravitational influence. Although influences from passing stars could have created the Kuiper belt's outer edge and could have scattered objects into large, eccentric orbits, no model currently explains the properties of Sedna. Here we show that a passing star probably scattered Sedna from the Kuiper belt into its observed orbit. The likelihood that a planet at 60-80 au can be scattered into Sedna's orbit is about 50 per cent; this estimate depends critically on the geometry of the fly-by. Even more interesting is the approximately 10 per cent chance that Sedna was captured from the outer disk of the passing star. Most captures have very high inclination orbits; detection of such objects would confirm the presence of extrasolar planets in our own Solar System.     

Saturn's moon Phoebe as a captured body from the outer Solar System

The orbital properties of Phoebe, one of Saturn's irregular moons, suggest that it was captured by the ringed planet's gravitational field rather than formed in situ. Phoebe's generally dark surface shows evidence of water ice, but otherwise the surface most closely resembles that of C-type asteroids and small outer Solar System bodies such as Chiron and Pholus that are thought to have originated in the Kuiper belt. A close fly-by of Phoebe by the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft on 11 June 2004 (19 days before the spacecraft entered orbit around Saturn) provided an opportunity to test the hypothesis that this moon did not form in situ during Saturn's formation, but is instead a product of the larger protoplanetary disk or 'solar nebula'. Here we derive the rock-to-ice ratio of Phoebe using its density combined with newly measured oxygen and carbon abundances in the solar photosphere. Phoebe's composition is close to that derived for other solar nebula bodies such as Triton and Pluto, but is very different from that of the regular satellites of Saturn, supporting Phoebe's origin as a captured body from the outer Solar System.     

Discovery of two new satellites of Pluto

Pluto's first known satellite, Charon, was discovered in 1978. It has a diameter (approximately 1,200 km) about half that of Pluto, which makes it larger, relative to its primary, than any other moon in the Solar System. Previous searches for other satellites around Pluto have been unsuccessful, but they were not sensitive to objects less, similar150 km in diameter and there are no fundamental reasons why Pluto should not have more satellites. Here we report the discovery of two additional moons around Pluto, provisionally designated S/2005 P 1 (hereafter P1) and S/2005 P 2 (hereafter P2), which makes Pluto the first Kuiper belt object known to have multiple satellites. These new satellites are much smaller than Charon, with estimates of P1's diameter ranging from 60 km to 165 km, depending on the surface reflectivity; P2 is about 20 per cent smaller than P1. Although definitive orbits cannot be derived, both new satellites appear to be moving in circular orbits in the same orbital plane as Charon, with orbital periods of approximately 38 days (P1) and approximately 25 days (P2).     

Origin of the orbital architecture of the giant planets of the Solar System

Planetary formation theories suggest that the giant planets formed on circular and coplanar orbits. The eccentricities of Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus, however, reach values of 6 per cent, 9 per cent and 8 per cent, respectively. In addition, the inclinations of the orbital planes of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune take maximum values of approximately 2 degrees with respect to the mean orbital plane of Jupiter. Existing models for the excitation of the eccentricity of extrasolar giant planets have not been successfully applied to the Solar System. Here we show that a planetary system with initial quasi-circular, coplanar orbits would have evolved to the current orbital configuration, provided that Jupiter and Saturn crossed their 1:2 orbital resonance. We show that this resonance crossing could have occurred as the giant planets migrated owing to their interaction with a disk of planetesimals. Our model reproduces all the important characteristics of the giant planets' orbits, namely their final semimajor axes, eccentricities and mutual inclinations.     

Rotational breakup as the origin of small binary asteroids

Asteroids with satellites are observed throughout the Solar System, from subkilometre near-Earth asteroid pairs to systems of large and distant bodies in the Kuiper belt. The smallest and closest systems are found among the near-Earth and small inner main-belt asteroids, which typically have rapidly rotating primaries and close secondaries on circular orbits. About 15 per cent of near-Earth and main-belt asteroids with diameters under 10 km have satellites. The mechanism that forms such similar binaries in these two dynamically different populations was hitherto unclear. Here we show that these binaries are created by the slow spinup of a 'rubble pile' asteroid by means of the thermal YORP (Yarkovsky-O'Keefe-Radzievskii-Paddack) effect. We find that mass shed from the equator of a critically spinning body accretes into a satellite if the material is collisionally dissipative and the primary maintains a low equatorial elongation. The satellite forms mostly from material originating near the primary's surface and enters into a close, low-eccentricity orbit. The properties of binaries produced by our model match those currently observed in the small near-Earth and main-belt asteroid populations, including 1999 KW(4) (refs 3, 4).     

Hot Jupiters from secular planet-planet interactions

About 25 per cent of 'hot Jupiters' (extrasolar Jovian-mass planets with close-in orbits) are actually orbiting counter to the spin direction of the star. Perturbations from a distant binary star companion can produce high inclinations, but cannot explain orbits that are retrograde with respect to the total angular momentum of the system. Such orbits in a stellar context can be produced through secular (that is, long term) perturbations in hierarchical triple-star systems. Here we report a similar analysis of planetary bodies, including both octupole-order effects and tidal friction, and find that we can produce hot Jupiters in orbits that are retrograde with respect to the total angular momentum. With distant stellar mass perturbers, such an outcome is not possible. With planetary perturbers, the inner orbit's angular momentum component parallel to the total angular momentum need not be constant. In fact, as we show here, it can even change sign, leading to a retrograde orbit. A brief excursion to very high eccentricity during the chaotic evolution of the inner orbit allows planet-star tidal interactions to rapidly circularize that orbit, decoupling the planets and forming a retrograde hot Jupiter.     

A common mass scaling for satellite systems of gaseous planets

The Solar System's outer planets that contain hydrogen gas all host systems of multiple moons, which notably each contain a similar fraction of their respective planet's mass (approximately 10(-4)). This mass fraction is two to three orders of magnitude smaller than that of the largest satellites of the solid planets (such as the Earth's Moon), and its common value for gas planets has been puzzling. Here we model satellite growth and loss as a forming giant planet accumulates gas and rock-ice solids from solar orbit. We find that the mass fraction of its satellite system is regulated to approximately 10(-4) by a balance of two competing processes: the supply of inflowing material to the satellites, and satellite loss through orbital decay driven by the gas. We show that the overall properties of the satellite systems of Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus arise naturally, and suggest that similar processes could limit the largest moons of extrasolar Jupiter-mass planets to Moon-to-Mars size.     

The sculpting of Jupiter's gossamer rings by its shadow

Dust near Jupiter is produced when interplanetary impactors collide energetically with small inner moons, and is organized into a main ring, an inner halo, and two fainter and more distant gossamer rings. Most of these structures are constrained by the orbits of the moons Adrastea, Metis, Amalthea and Thebe, but a faint outward protrusion called the Thebe extension behaves differently and has eluded understanding. Here we report on dust impacts detected during the Galileo spacecraft's traversal of the outer ring region: we find a gap in the rings interior to Thebe's orbit, grains on highly inclined paths, and a strong excess of submicrometre-sized dust just inside Amalthea's orbit. We present detailed modelling that shows that the passage of ring particles through Jupiter's shadow creates the Thebe extension and fully accounts for these Galileo results. Dust grains alternately charge and discharge when traversing shadow boundaries, allowing the planet's powerful magnetic field to excite orbital eccentricities and, when conditions are right, inclinations as well.     

卫星编队飞行的动力学特性与相对轨道构形仿真

为了克服 Hill方程的局限性 ,利用轨道根数描述卫星编队飞行 ,从理论上给出了长期编队所需的条件 ,包括相对位置和相对速度的关系 ,以及和各卫星相对轨道根数之间的关系 ;理论上证明了要长期近距离编队卫星轨道周期必须相同。仿真了各种不同轨道根数下的相对运动轨迹 ,与定性的理论分析进行比较 ,说明了轨道根数描述方法的优越性。方法可适用任意偏心率的椭圆轨道 ,将为飞行器编队飞行的轨道设计提供理论参考。不考虑摄动时轨道根数接近的飞行器不需主动控制而可长期保持近距离编队飞行     

海王星特洛伊小天体动力学

特洛伊小天体与行星同享一个轨道,并与太阳、行星在空间构成等边三角形,最早为人们所知的特洛伊小天体是位于木星轨道上并位于木星前(后)方60°的两群小天体.而海王星特洛伊小天体则是近20年来太阳系内最重要的发现之一.观测证据表明海王星特洛伊小天体的总数量和总质量远超过木星特洛伊小天体和主带小行星,是太阳系内仅次于柯伊伯带的第二大小天体集群.它们一方面具有独特的轨道特征,另一方面又联系着海王星轨道内、外的空间,自然而然地成为检验太阳系起源与演化的试金石.我们简要介绍了对海王星特洛伊小天体的观测结果、对它们的轨道动力学和起源研究的进展.     

基于最小二乘估计的卫星编队飞行轨道设计

在卫星编队飞行相对运动方程的基础上提出了一种基于最小二乘估计的卫星编队飞行轨道设计方法,即在参考卫星轨道根数、相对运动轨迹和伴随卫星近点幅角已知的情况下应用最小二乘估计法设计伴随卫星其余轨道根数。该方法不仅能够应用于小偏心率参考轨道情况下的相对轨道设计,而且能够解决大偏心率参考轨道情况下的相对轨道设计问题。仿真结果表明该方法可行。     

基于同心圆轨道的锥形束CT重建算法

由于基于圆轨道锥形束 CT(com putertom ography)重建算法 (如 FDK算法 )只有在小锥角的条件下才能得到比较好的重建质量 ,因此在实际应用中时受到很多的限制。该文利用外推的思想提出了一种基于同心圆轨道的锥束 CT重建算法。利用不同半径的同心圆轨道对物体重建两次 ,并根据平方反比关系 ,利用两次 FDK算法重建结果的差异估计出真实值和重建值的差异 ,然后利用这个差异来修正重建结果。得益于这个修正 ,该算法可以很好地抑制FDK算法由于锥角变大引起的伪影。仿真模拟结果表明 :该算法对高对比度和低对比度物体锥束重建的锥角使用范围比 FDK提高 1～ 3倍     

同步轨道卫星实时测定轨方法

同步轨道卫星由于其"静止"特性,用多台站时间比对技术精确测定地面站到卫星间的伪距。而在以伪距为观测量的测定轨中,观测方程和动力学方程都是非线性的。为了避免线性化方程带来的误差,并满足实时性要求,该文提出用无味Kalman滤波(unscented Kalman filtering,UKF)法。实验是用5个距离拉开的测轨站采集的实测数据,并通过计算机仿真验证,仿真结果表明UKF法测定轨结果随机误差明显减小,而且满足实时性要求。     

Planet-planet scattering in the upsilon Andromedae system

Doppler spectroscopy has detected 152 planets around nearby stars. A major puzzle is why many of their orbits are highly eccentric; all planets in our Solar System are on nearly circular orbits, as is expected if they formed by accretion processes in a protostellar disk. Several mechanisms have been proposed to generate large eccentricities after planet formation, but so far there has been little observational evidence to support any particular model. Here we report that the current orbital configuration of the three giant planets around upsilon Andromedae (upsilon And) probably results from a close dynamical interaction with another planet, now lost from the system. The planets started on nearly circular orbits, but chaotic evolution caused the outer planet (upsilon And d) to be perturbed suddenly into a higher-eccentricity orbit. The coupled evolution of the system then causes slow periodic variations in the eccentricity of the middle planet (upsilon And c). Indeed, we show that upsilon And c periodically returns to a very nearly circular state every 6,700 years.     

A giant impact origin for Pluto's small moons and satellite multiplicity in the Kuiper belt

The two newly discovered satellites of Pluto (P1 and P2) have masses that are small compared to both Pluto and Charon-that is, between 5 x 10(-4) and 1 x 10(-5) of Pluto's mass, and between 5 x 10(-3) and 1 x 10(-4) of Charon's mass. This discovery, combined with the constraints on the absence of more distant satellites of Pluto, reveal that Pluto and its moons comprise an unusual, highly compact, quadruple system. These facts naturally raise the question of how this puzzling satellite system came to be. Here we show that P1 and P2's proximity to Pluto and Charon, the fact that P1 and P2 are on near-circular orbits in the same plane as Pluto's large satellite Charon, along with their apparent locations in or near high-order mean-motion resonances, all probably result from their being constructed from collisional ejecta that originated from the Pluto-Charon formation event. We also argue that dust-ice rings of variable optical depths form sporadically in the Pluto system, and that rich satellite systems may be found--perhaps frequently--around other large Kuiper belt objects.