IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v429y2004i6994d10.1038_nature02609.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mercury's capture into the 3/2 spin-orbit resonance as a result of its chaotic dynamics

Author

Listed:
  • Alexandre C. M. Correia

    (Departamento de Física da Universidade de Aveiro
    Observatoire de Paris)

  • Jacques Laskar

    (Observatoire de Paris)

Abstract

Mercury is locked into a 3/2 spin-orbit resonance where it rotates three times on its axis for every two orbits around the sun1,2,3. The stability of this equilibrium state is well established4,5,6, but our understanding of how this state initially arose remains unsatisfactory. Unless one uses an unrealistic tidal model with constant torques (which cannot account for the observed damping of the libration of the planet) the computed probability of capture into 3/2 resonance is very low (about 7 per cent)5. This led to the proposal that core–mantle friction may have increased the capture probability, but such a process requires very specific values of the core viscosity7,8. Here we show that the chaotic evolution of Mercury's orbit can drive its eccentricity beyond 0.325 during the planet's history, which very efficiently leads to its capture into the 3/2 resonance. In our numerical integrations of 1,000 orbits of Mercury over 4 Gyr, capture into the 3/2 spin-orbit resonant state was the most probable final outcome of the planet's evolution, occurring 55.4 per cent of the time.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexandre C. M. Correia & Jacques Laskar, 2004. "Mercury's capture into the 3/2 spin-orbit resonance as a result of its chaotic dynamics," Nature, Nature, vol. 429(6994), pages 848-850, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:429:y:2004:i:6994:d:10.1038_nature02609
    DOI: 10.1038/nature02609
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02609
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature02609?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. EL-Nabulsi, Ahmad Rami, 2009. "Fractional action-like variational problems in holonomic, non-holonomic and semi-holonomic constrained and dissipative dynamical systems," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 52-61.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:429:y:2004:i:6994:d:10.1038_nature02609. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.