Skip to main content

Astronomy (thesaurus)

Search from vocabulary

align
annotate
download

Concept information

classical mechanics aspects > celestial mechanics > orbital resonance

Preferred term

orbital resonance  

Definition

  • In celestial mechanics, orbital resonance occurs when orbiting bodies exert regular, periodic gravitational influence on each other, usually because their orbital periods are related by a ratio of small integers. Most commonly, this relationship is found between a pair of objects (binary resonance). The physical principle behind orbital resonance is similar in concept to pushing a child on a swing, whereby the orbit and the swing both have a natural frequency, and the body doing the "pushing" will act in periodic repetition to have a cumulative effect on the motion. Orbital resonances greatly enhance the mutual gravitational influence of the bodies (i.e., their ability to alter or constrain each other's orbits). In most cases, this results in an unstable interaction, in which the bodies exchange momentum and shift orbits until the resonance no longer exists. Under some circumstances, a resonant system can be self-correcting and thus stable. Examples are the 1:2:4 resonance of Jupiter's moons Ganymede, Europa and Io, and the 2:3 resonance between Pluto and Neptune. Unstable resonances with Saturn's inner moons give rise to gaps in the rings of Saturn. The special case of 1:1 resonance between bodies with similar orbital radii causes large solar system bodies to eject most other bodies sharing their orbits; this is part of the much more extensive process of clearing the neighbourhood, an effect that is used in the current definition of a planet. (Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_resonance)

Broader concept

Narrower concepts

In other languages

URI

http://data.loterre.fr/ark:/67375/MDL-Z75502TW-1

Download this concept:

RDF/XML TURTLE JSON-LD