Final Project: Tidal Forces and the Roche Limit of Planetary Bodies

Yu Xian He
PHYS 305

Introduction

Tidal forces are the differential forces between the gravitational forces of a primary mass and an
orbiting satellite mass. An orbiting satellite or moon is attracted to the object it orbits, but on the side
that is closer to the primary mass will be more attracted than the opposite side farther away. As a
satellite gets closer to the primary, the gravitational forces will fight each other until they cause the
satellite to break apart. The distance between a satellite and the center of mass of the primary for when
the satellite breaks apart is called the Roche Limit. Figure 1 shows that this can be derived by setting
the gravitational force equal to the tidal force:

Figure 1: Gravitational forces between two masses [1]

(1)

(2)

Here, Equation 1 is the gravitational force of the moon m with μ as the mass of one of its sides.
Equation 2 is the tidal force, which is obtained from the gravitational forces between M and m, and
between m and μ. If we set Fg = Ft:

(3)

The distance d is the Roche limit, and R is the radius of the primary mass. Equation 3 allows us to
obtain this distance from the density of the two masses.
Because moons break up once they venture into this distance, this is a theory of how the rings are
formed around the gas gian planets in our solar system. This program plots an orbit of a moon around a
planet, allowing the user to adjust the initial velocity and the starting distance away from the planet, to
see what happens to the orbit as it approaches the Roche limit.

Figure 2: As a satellite approaches the Roche limit, it will break up and may form rings around the plane t

Implementation

The C++ program uses the Runge-Kutta second order method to solve ordinary differential equations to
plot the orbital motion of a satellite using the following equations for the gravitational force:

(4)

(5)

(6)

First, the program defines constants for G, M, the initial x and y positions, and the initial x and y
velocity components. The user may increase or decrease these initial values by a percentage. Then, the
program runs with the accepted values and prints out the x and y values to be plotted.
Results and Graphical Analysis

I plotted the orbit of Saturn's moon Mimas, using the following constant values for x0 and vy0:

Figure 3: Orbital paths of Mimas at 75% and 50% of its original distance away from Saturn at initial velocity 14.32
km/s (original velocity unchanged)

Mimas' semimajor axis is at 185,520 km from Saturn [2], so at 75% it becomes 139,140 and at 50% the
distance is 92,760 km. The bold purple line is the Roche limit of Saturn at approximately 2.5 of its
radius, at 147,000 km [3]. However, the computed Roche limit using Equation 3 of Mimas and Saturn
is 50,787.7 km, which is less than the radius of Saturn itself. This means that Mimas will not reach its
Roche limit. The graph shows that Mimas will eventually crash into Saturn if we keep its original
orbital velocity of 14.32 km/s.
Figure 4: Orbits of Mimas with unchanged initial x distance and decreased velocity by 75% and 50%.

Figure 4 shows that by decreasing the initial velocity but keeping the initial distance, the orbit of
Mimas will also distort and hit Saturn.
Figure 5 below shows orbits of Pan, a smaller, outer Saturnian moon:

Figure 5: The orbits of Pan at 75% and 50% of its maximum distance from Saturn, compared with Pan's Roche limit
and Saturn's Roche limit.

The normal orbit of Pan starts out as x0 = 133,583 km and vy0 = 16.9 km/s [4]. After decreasing x0 to
75% of the original value at 100,187.3 km (shown in the green line), the orbit passes Pan's Roche limit
at 71,010.5 km. Unlike Mimas, Pan's Roche limit is outside of Saturn's radius, so it's possible that if
Pan's distance from Saturn decrease, it may break apart and end up becoming a ring. At 50% of the
original distance from Saturn is already beyond the Roche limit.

Conclusion

The quantitive data from my program were only for the orbits of the moons themselves. I wasn't able to
get any quantitive data specifically for describing the tidal forces or how satellites break up (e.g. its
orientation and how it exactly breaks up). However, I was able to compared how orbits vary by
changing the velocity and distance of a satellite, and I was able to show that it is possible for a
Saturnian moon to break up at it's Roche limit. I've researched that Pan is known as a “shepard moon,”
which is a moon that clears a gap between the rings and sometimes it may break up or accrete more
ring particles to keep the formation of the ring [5]. Eventually, Pan may get near it's Roche limit and
eventually contribute itself to the Saturnian rings.
References

[1] Roche limit. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roche_limit

[2] Mimas. Sulfridge, Marcus. http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~marcsulf/saturn/mimas.html
[3] 8.4 Planetary Rings.
http://www.castlerock.wednet.edu/HS/stello/Astronomy/TEXT/CHAISSON/BG308/HTML/BG30804.
HTM
[4] Sizes, shapes, and derived propeties of the saturnian satellites after the Cassini nominal
mission.Thomas, P.C. http://www.ciclops.org/media/sp/2011/6794_16344_0.pdf