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Conditions for appearance of strange attractors in rotational dynamics of small planetary satellites

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Abstract

The conditions for the origination of strange attractors in the rotational dynamics of small planetary satellites when they reach a neighborhood of a synchronous resonance separatrix in the course of tidal evolution of the rotary motion are investigated by means of numerical experiments. It is assumed that a satellite has an arbitrary shape and moves along a fixed orbit in the gravitational field of a point-like mass; its rotational axis is orthogonal to the orbit plane. By calculating Lyapunov exponents, the regions of the values of problem parameters have been found where a strange attractor exists. The possibility of the appearance strange attractor in the rotational dynamics of real small planetary satellites is considered.

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  1. Pulkovo Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia

    A. V. Melnikov

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Correspondence to A. V. Melnikov.

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Original Russian Text © A.V. Melnikov, 2014, published in Kosmicheskie Issledovaniya, 2014, Vol. 52, No. 6, pp. 500–511.

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Melnikov, A.V. Conditions for appearance of strange attractors in rotational dynamics of small planetary satellites. Cosmic Res 52, 461–471 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0010952514060045

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