Artículos de revistas
Stable satellites around extrasolar giant planets
Fecha
2006-12-11Registro en:
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Malden: Wiley-blackwell, v. 373, n. 3, p. 1227-1234, 2006.
0035-8711
10.1111/j.1365-2966.2006.11104.x
WOS:000243152900023
5483476857978177
6652169083464327
0000-0002-0516-0420
Autor
Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE)
Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp)
Institución
Resumen
In this work, we study the stability of hypothetical satellites of extrasolar planets. Through numerical simulations of the restricted elliptic three-body problem we found the borders of the stable regions around the secondary body. From the empirical results, we derived analytical expressions of the critical semimajor axis beyond which the satellites would not remain stable. The expressions are given as a function of the eccentricities of the planet, e(P), and of the satellite, e(sat). In the case of prograde, satellites, the critical semimajor axis, in the units of Hill's radius, is given by a(E) approximate to 0.4895 (1.0000 - 1.0305e(P) - 0.2738e(sat)). In the case of retrograde satellites, it is given by a(E) approximate to 0.9309 (1.0000 - 1.0764e(P) - 0.9812e(sat)). We also computed the satellite stability region (a(E)) for a set of extrasolar planets. The results indicate that extrasolar planets in the habitable zone could harbour the Earth-like satellites.