2022
DOI: 10.1126/science.abn1234
|View full text |Cite
|
Sign up to set email alerts
|

Loss of a satellite could explain Saturn’s obliquity and young rings

Abstract: The origin of Saturn’s ~26.7° obliquity and ~100-million-year-old rings is unknown. The observed rapid outward migration of Saturn’s largest satellite, Titan, could have raised Saturn’s obliquity through a spin-orbit precession resonance with Neptune. We use Cassini data to refine estimates of Saturn’s moment of inertia, finding that it is just outside the range required for the resonance. We propose that Saturn previously had an additional satellite, which we name Chrysalis, that caused Saturn’s obliquity to … Show more

Help me understand this report

Search citation statements

Order By: Relevance

Paper Sections

Select...
2
1
1
1

Citation Types

0
30
0

Year Published

2023
2023
2024
2024

Publication Types

Select...
8

Relationship

3
5

Authors

Journals

citations
Cited by 19 publications
(37 citation statements)
references
References 41 publications
0
30
0
Order By: Relevance
“…Finally, with our most plausible five-layer models for Jupiter's interior, we predict the planet's MoI to be 0.26393 ± 0.00001, which is about ∼10% above the critical value of C/MR 2 = 0.236 for the planet to be in spin-orbit resonance with Uranus today (Ward & Canup 2006). Wisdom et al (2022) argue that available high-precision measurements of Saturn's zonal harmonics suffice to infer a tight MoI range that rules out a current Saturn precession resonance with Neptune. By the same token, our predicted range for Jupiter's MoI needs to lie within the range constrained by Junoʼs extended mission measurement of MoI.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 76%
See 2 more Smart Citations
“…Finally, with our most plausible five-layer models for Jupiter's interior, we predict the planet's MoI to be 0.26393 ± 0.00001, which is about ∼10% above the critical value of C/MR 2 = 0.236 for the planet to be in spin-orbit resonance with Uranus today (Ward & Canup 2006). Wisdom et al (2022) argue that available high-precision measurements of Saturn's zonal harmonics suffice to infer a tight MoI range that rules out a current Saturn precession resonance with Neptune. By the same token, our predicted range for Jupiter's MoI needs to lie within the range constrained by Junoʼs extended mission measurement of MoI.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 76%
“…Our models with DR predict Saturn's MoI to be 0.2181 ± 0.0002. This is 1% too small for Saturn to be in a spin-orbit resonance with Neptune today, but Wisdom et al (2022) predicted that the planet was in resonance in the past when it had an additional moon that was tidally disrupted and formed the rings. With physical but simplified models for Jupiter's interior that match only J 2 , we obtain a wide range from 0.26385 to 0.26400 for the planet's MoI.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
See 1 more Smart Citation
“…Saturn's moment of inertia is of particular interest from the perspective of a proposed resonance between Saturn's spin axis precession and Neptune's orbital precession, a commensurability that could help to explain Saturn's high obliquity (Ward & Hamilton 2004;Saillenfest et al 2021) and the recent , consistent with the upper end of estimates from the gravity modeling from Wisdom et al (2022), and approximately 0.5% smaller than the value required for the resonance to be active today. This supports the notion that the resonance is inactive today, but may have been active in the past.…”
Section: Moment Of Inertiamentioning
confidence: 95%
“…This would be consistent with, but would not require, a recent origin of the system. More recently, Wisdom et al (2022) proposed an alternate proposal for a recent cataclysm that originates not in the inner system but in an instability between Titan and a past resonant moon (see Asphaug & Reufer 2013;Hamilton 2013); the full consequence of this scenario for the inner moons is still unclear.…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%