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Published December 1985 | public
Journal Article

Evolution of the Janus-Epimetheus Coorbital Resonance Due to Torques from Saturn's Rings

Abstract

We analyze the interactions between Saturn's coorbital satellites, Janus and Epimetheus, and the outer edge of the A ring, which is presumably maintained by these moons at their 7:6 resonance. Using two distinct but conceptually related methods, we show that ring torques are driving these satellites into a tighter lock. Unless there is a counterbalancing force which we have neglected, their orbital configuration will evolve from the current horseshoe-type lock to one of tadpole orbits around a single Lagrange point in ∼20 myr. This finding adds an additional member to the list of short time scale problems associated with the interactions between Saturn's rings and its inner moons

Additional Information

© 1985 Academic Press Inc. Received April 29, 1985; revised August 19, 1985. We are grateful to Nicole Borderies for her assistance in the early phases of this research. Useful data and comments were also provided by J. Cuzzi, L. Dones, S. Peale, F. Shu, S. Synnott, and C. Yoder. JJL was supported by an NAS-NRC resident research associateship at NASA-Ames and NASA consortium Grant NCA2-1R050-501 at UC Berkeley. PG acknowledges support from NASA Grant NGL-05-002-003 and NSF Grant AST-8313725. ST acknowledges support from NSF Grant AST-8412365.

Additional details

Created:
August 22, 2023
Modified:
October 23, 2023