Synchronous Satellites of Venus
Anthony R. Dobrovolskis, Jose Luis Alvarellos
Synchronous satellites of Venus have long been thought unstable, but we use Poincare’s surface of section technique to show that synchronous quasi-satellites orbiting just outside Venus’ Hill sphere are quite stable, at least for centuries. Such synchrosats always remain within a few degrees of Venus’ equator, and drift very slowly in longitude. These synchrosats could be useful for continuous monitoring of points on Venus’ surface, such as active landforms or long-lived landers.
Comments: Advances in Space Research 2021
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
DOI: 10.1016/j.asr.2021.09.022
Cite as: arXiv:2112.06313 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2112.06313v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
Submission history
From: Jose Alvarellos
[v1] Sun, 12 Dec 2021 20:12:08 UTC (2,309 KB)
