Abstract
1. It is well known, that the Trojan planets avoid close approaches to Jupiter by a mechanism of libration, although parts of their orbits are very close to the orbit of Jupiter. The difference of the longitudes of a Trojan and Jupiter librates in such a way, that it does not come close to 0°. Belyaev and Tchebotarev [1] have recently investigated the orbital motion of 14 Trojans and of 40 other interesting minor planets by numerical integrations extended over an interval of 400 years. They find the minimum distance of a Trojan to Jupiter as 2.6 AU, while in the contrary (944) Hidalgo can approach Jupiter to a distance of 0.4 (AU). Among 20 planets of the Hilda group and (279) Thule, the closest encounter with Jupiter occurs in case of (334) Chicago (1.1 AU). The planet Chicago has a small orbital eccentricity, while other planets in the Hilda group have much larger eccentricities. Since these planets have also a large mean distance from the sun, some of them come close to the orbit of Jupiter, if they pass the aphelion of their orbit. In spite of this, there are no very close encounters with Jupiter in such a case. The planets in the Hilda group are characterized by a mean motion which is nearly commensurable to that of Jupiter according to the commensurability ratio \( \frac{3}{2} \). The near commensurability allows a mechanism of libration, which acts in the more eccentric cases among the orbits. As a consequence of this mechanism, a conjunction of the minor planet with Jupiter takes only place, if the minor planet is not too far from the perihelion of its orbit. In this way the minor planet avoids very close encounters with Jupiter.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Belyaev, N. A. and Tchebotarev, G. A.: 1968, ‘The Orbit Evolution of 54 Minor Planets for 400 Years (1660–2060)’, Astron. Circ. Moscow No. 480, Aug. 22, 1968.
Schubart, J.: 1968, ‘Long-period Effects in the Motion of Hilda-type Planets’, Astron. J. 73, 99.
Marsden, B. G.: 1969, Personal communication.
Takenouchi, T.: 1962, ‘On the Characteristic Motion and the Critical Argument of Asteroid (279) Thule’, Ann. Tokyo Astron. Obs. 7, 191.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1970 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland
About this paper
Cite this paper
Schubart, J. (1970). Minor Planets on Commensurable Orbits with Approaches to Jupiter. In: Giacaglia, G.E.O. (eds) Periodic Orbits, Stability and Resonances. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-3323-7_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-3323-7_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-3325-1
Online ISBN: 978-94-010-3323-7
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive