Analytical description of physical librations of Saturnian coorbital satellites Janus and Epimetheus

Philippe Robutel (1) , Nicolas Rambaux (1) , Julie Castillo-Rogez (2)

1 IMCCE - Institut de Mécanique Céleste et de Calcul des Ephémérides
2 JPL - Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Janus and Epimetheus are famously known for their distinctive horseshoe-shaped orbits resulting from a 1:1 orbital resonance. Every four years these two satellites swap their orbits by a few tens of kilometers as a result of their close encounter. Recently Tiscareno et al. (2009) have proposed a model of rotation based on images from the Cassini orbiter. These authors inferred the amplitude of rotational librational motion in longitude at the orbital period by fitting a shape model to the recent Cassini ISS images. By a quasiperiodic approximation of the orbital motion, we describe how the orbital swap impacts the rotation of the satellites. To that purpose, we have developed a formalism based on quasi-periodic series with long and short-period librations. In this framework, the amplitude of the libration at the orbital period is found proportional to a term accounting for the orbital swap. We checked the analytical quasi-periodic development by performing a numerical simulation and find both results in good agreement. To complete this study, the results regarding the short-period librations are studied with the help of an adiabatic-like approach.

Mots clés: Celestial mechanics; spin-orbit resonances; rotational dynamics; satellites; Saturn

Domaines: Planétologie et astrophysique de la terre [astro-ph.EP]; Planétologie et astrophysique de la terre [astro-ph.EP]

Philippe Robutel, Nicolas Rambaux, Julie Castillo-Rogez. Analytical description of physical librations of Saturnian coorbital satellites Janus and Epimetheus. 2010. ⟨hal-00460707v2⟩