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The Role of Saturn's Oblateness in the Mimas-Tethys Resonance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 August 2015

R. Greenberg*
Affiliation:
Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, Ariz. 85721, U.S.A.

Extract

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Saturn's satellites Mimas and Tethys appear to be involved in a unique resonance. All orbit-orbit resonances, by definition, have the satellites' conjunction librating about some specific longitude. Equivalently, their orbital periods, measured relative to that longitude, are commensurable. Most orbit-orbit resonances are of the eccentricity-type; the conjunctions librate about the longitude of an apse of one orbit. The Mimas-Tethys resonance is of the inclination type.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Reidel 1974 

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