The orbital stability of the Sun-Jupiter-Saturn system

Abstract

Kuiper(1973) suggested that the stability of the Solar System may be meaningfully investigated by studying the stability of the Sun-Jupiter-Saturn system. Numerical investigations by Nacozy (1976) showed that mass enhancement of the two planets beyond a factor of 29.25 led to instabilities in the system. In this new investigation similar mass enhancements were studied in detail numerically and compared with the analytical values derived from the c 2 H method. In addition, the eccentricities of the two planets were varied as well as their masses. It was found that the system soon showed signs of instability for the increased eccentricities when the masses of the planets were enhanced by fairly small factors. -Mello et al. (eds.), Dynamics, Ephemerides and Astrometry of the Solar System, 53-56. © 1996 IAU. Printed in the Netherlands. 53 S. Ferraz

A tertiary component in close binary systems

“…This problem has attracted the attention of many investigators. So, very important investigations have been made in the past [40][41][42][43][44][45] as well as during the last decade [46,47]. To be more specific, a lower limit for the stability of the ratio P L /P S was determined in the study of the dynamic stability of triple systems, with initially circular orbits.…”

“…The effect of eccentricity was examined and it was found that, for systems with binaries moving on circular orbits, the stability regions are slightly expanded or contracted in size for large or small mass ratios respectively, as the eccentricity of the outer mass is increased [45]. It was also found that retrograde systems are more stable.…”