Explaining Past High Heat Fluxes of Miranda and Ariel Using "Resonance Locking"
Abstract
Moons orbiting large bodies evolve outwards with time. Estimates of past heat fluxes for the Uranian moons Miranda [1] and Ariel [2] generated from topography obtained during the Voyager flyby of Uranus are too high to be explained by existing models of orbital evolution [2]. Our work attempts to determine whether such high heat fluxes can be accounted for by "resonance locking" [3], which occurs when a moon becomes trapped in resonance with an oscillation mode of the planet and thus migrates outwards on the timescale over which that mode evolves. A consequence is that, when moons become trapped in mean-motion resonances (MMRs), tidal heating in the moons can be much larger than would be possible without resonance locking. Work so far suggests that "resonance locking" is capable of producing heat fluxes similar to the inferred ranges for Miranda and Ariel. Future work will focus on constraining possible heating and orbital migration scenarios in order to better understand the interior evolution of Uranus.
[1] Beddingfield, Burr, & Emery. (2015) Icarus 247 [2] Peterson, Nimmo, & Schenk. (2015) Icarus 250 [3] Fuller et al. (2016) MNRAS- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFM.U21B..01S
- Keywords:
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- 0810 Post-secondary education;
- EDUCATION;
- 0815 Informal education;
- EDUCATION