Orbital Evolution of Titan and Iapetus, from that other AAS conference, the DDA Options

[ngunn]

Nosing through the DPS Titan abstracts my curiosity was aroused by poster abstract 309.01, where Iapetus is singled out as a likely perturbing influence on Titan's orbit. Exploring this topic further I discovered I was actually at the 'wrong' conference - and several months behind the times:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013DDA....4430105C

[ngunn]

This is from the Titan through Time 3 abstracts that Mike Malaska helpfully linked to under 'Conferences and Publcations'. Unlike most of the other abstracts this one is just a short teaser. I look forward to learning more in due course.

The Origin of Titan and Hyperion.
D. P. Hamilton1, 1 Astronomy Department University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 USA
(dphamil@astro.umd.edu).

Titan is arguably the Solar System’s most unusual
satellite. It is fifty times more massive than Saturn’s
other moons and is the only satellite with a substantial
atmosphere. Titan shares a unique resonance with
nearby Hyperion, but otherwise sits in a particularly
large gap between Rhea and Iapetus. Titan has the
largest eccentricity of all Saturn’s regular satellites and
has a reasonably large orbital tilt; its distant neighbor
Iapetus has an even more impressive eight degree free
inclination. Hyperion itself is a mystery, with its unusual
orbit, extremely low density and its unique surface
covered with bizarre craters. None of these peculiarities
are even partially understood. Until now!

[ngunn]

OK Here's a little more:

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013DPS....4530201H

[Jason W Barnes]

OK Here's a little more:

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013DPS....4530201H

Doug's talk at TtT^3 was very interesting -- hopefully he'll write it up soon so that others can learn of this new idea!

[nprev]

I take it we're talking 'late' as in no later than the end of the LHB? If so, the implications for the longevity of Titan's atmosphere & environment are intriguing.

[ngunn]

I take it we're talking 'late' as in no later than the end of the LHB?

I don't think that's a safe assumption. We know from the Jupiter system that evolving resonances have produced big orbital/thermal events that have reshaped three of the moons in relatively recent geological time without the need for any disruption from without. A second giant moon around Saturn creates a similarly chaotic system with the potential to generate a home-grown catastrophic event after an undefined interval of time.

Doug's talk at TtT^3 was very interesting -- hopefully he'll write it up soon so that others can learn of this new idea!

I would echo that in slightly different words: Hopefully he'll write it up soon in a place where everyone can read it.

[Jason W Barnes]

I take it we're talking 'late' as in no later than the end of the LHB? If so, the implications for the longevity of Titan's atmosphere & environment are intriguing.

From the talk, the event must have occurred at least half a billion years after the formation of the solar system so that Saturn would have had its obliquity tilted appropriately, but that all other times are okay from a dynamical prospective. Clearly surface geology places a constraint on the other end.