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3rd Austrian Hungarian Workshop
Thomas Löger
Spin Orbit resonances of non spherical natural satellites in the solar system
Spin Orbit resonances e.g. the exact commensurability between the rotational and revolutional periods of a satellite, orbiting around a central body, have been investigated by Wisdom, Goldreich, Peale and other authors. First an overview of the models they used is given, then their different approaches to derive formulas describing these models are unified and hidden assumptations are revealed. The equation describing one of that models, where the rotational axis of the satellite is assumed to be perpendicular to the orbital plane is solved numerically for Phobos and Deimos, the highly non spherical satellites of Mars. Even there excentricity is very small, the results of the numerical integration leads to the assumption that the rotation period of Phobos and Deimos is not commensurable with their orbital period. These results were verified by calculating Lyapunov Exponents.
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