APOD picture 22-feb-2006

tnzkka · Post by **tnzkka** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 8:42 am

Newbee here, but...with a question:

Telesto orbits Saturn always just ahead of the much larger moon Tethys

This is an ordinary troyan-system: Saturn-Thetys-Telesto, I assume.
What is the role of te Sun in view of the stability of this system?

See: http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/ContentMedia/lagrange.pdf
Thanks for any hint or answer
Hint for "humble self": http://math.smsu.edu/journal/Jorba.pdf

@moderator: topic may be closed

orin stepanek · Post by **orin stepanek** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 8:12 pm

Don't know but the moon looks like a big chunk of ice to me.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060222.html

Orin

gordhaddow · Post by **gordhaddow** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 2:23 pm

Since we are looking at several more than 3 bodies in this situation, I don't really think that it can be considered as a 'trojan' system at all, let alone an 'ordinary' one. Given relative proximities and masses, the integrated sum of the gravitational effects of the 'local' components (Saturn, accretion disk, all moons) probably far outweighs the impact of Sol in determining stability.