Irregular Satellites of Jupiter: a study of the capture direction |
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Authors: | Douglas Soldan de Oliveira Othon Cabo Winter Ernesto Vieira Neto Gislaine de Felipe |
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Institution: | (1) Grupo de Dinamica Orbital and Planetologia, UNESP, C.P. 205, CEP 12516-410 Guaratingueta, SP, Brazil |
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Abstract: | The irregular satellites of Jupiter are believed to be captured asteroids or planetesimals. In the present work is studied
the direction of capture of these objects as a function of their orbital inclination. We performed numerical simulations of
the restricted three-body problem, Sun-Jupiter-particle, taking into account the growth of Jupiter. The integration was made
backward in time. Initially, the particles have orbits as satellites of Jupiter, which has its present mass. Then, the system
evolved with Jupiter losing mass and the satellites escaping from the planet. The reverse of the escape direction corresponds
to the capture direction. The results show that the Lagrangian points L1 and L2 mainly guide the direction of capture. Prograde
satellites are captured through these two gates with very narrow amplitude angles. In the case of retrograde satellites, these
two gates are wider. The capture region increases as the orbital inclination increases. In the case of planar retrograde satellites
the directions of capture cover the whole 360° around Jupiter. We also verified that prograde satellites are captured earlier
in actual time than retrograde ones.
This paper was presented at the Asteriods, Comets and Meteors meeting held at Búzios, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in August 2005
and could not be included in the special issue related to that conference. |
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Keywords: | Irregular satellites Gravitational capture Three-body problem Capture direction Jupiter’ s growth |
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