Roche limit
Home ... Science and Technology Astronomy and Space Exploration Astronomy: General ...
Essential reading Compare
side-by-side A Dictionary of Astronomy The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition ...
Roche Limit: Why Do Comets Break Up?
By Mike Luciuk
When comets pass close to a massive body like the Sun or Jupiter, they may break up due, at least in part, to the tidal forces encountered.
Roche Limit:
The Roche limit is the minimum distance to which a large satellite can approach its primary body without being torn apart by tidal forces.
Roche Limit
The Roche Limit was first described by Edouard Roche in 1848. It is the closest distance a body held together by self-gravity can come to a planet without being pulled apart by the planet's tidal (gravity) force.
Roche Limit- the closest one celestial object can get to another before the weaker object is broken apart by tidal effects ...
Roche Limit
The minimum distance at which a satellite under the influence of its own gravitation and that of a central mass about which it is describing a circular Keplerian orbit can be in equilibrium.
Roche limit
The smallest distance from a planet at which an object will not be broken up by tidal forces. An object nearer than the Roche limit will most likely be broken into smaller pieces.
S ...
Roche Limit
The minimum distance between a planet and a satellite that holds itself together by its own gravity. If a satellites orbit brings it inside the Roche limit, tidal forces will break the satellite up.
Rolling Plains ...
Roche limit
The smallest distance from a planet or other body at which purely gravitational forces can hold together a satellite or secondary body of the same mean density as the primary; ...
Roche limit: The smallest distance at which a planetary object that has no internal strength can orbit another body without being torn apart by the larger body's gravitational force.
Roche limit. The distance from the centre of a planet that another body would have to be within to be broken up by the gravitational pull of the planet. This would only be true for an object that is not gravitationally cohesive.
S ...
ROCHE LIMIT
The closest point which a satellite held together only by gravity can approach its primary without being disrupted by the tidal effect of the primary. Its value is about 2.
THE ROCHE LIMIT
But why a ring of particles at all? What process produced the rings in the first place? To answer these questions, consider the fate of a small moon orbiting close to a massive planet such as Saturn.
Roche limit - Space and Astronomy Definition - Online Dictionary and Glossa...
Schwarzschild radius - Space and Astronomy Definition - Online Dictionary a...
meter; m - Space and Astronomy Definition - Online Dictionary and Glossary ...
Roche limit Often called the tidal stability limit, the Roche limit gives the distance from a planet at which the tidal force, due to the planet, between adjacent objects exceeds their mutual attraction.
Roche Limit
The smallest distance at which two celestial bodies can remain in a stable orbit around each other without one of them being torn apart by tidal forces.
ROCHE LIMIT
The Roche limit is the distance from the center of a star or other object at which a large orbiting object will break up due to tidal (gravitational) forces. Large planets or moons cannot orbit within the Roche limit; they break up.
Roche limit - (n.)
The point near a massive body such as a planet or star, inside of which the tidal forces acting on an orbiting body exceed the gravitational force holding that body together.
The classic Roche limit for a (fluid) body of density 1 g/cm^3 approaching Jupiter is about 119,000 kilometers (74,000 miles) above the cloud tops of the planet. It is about 169,000 kilometers (105,000 miles) for a body having a density of 0.5 g/cm^3.
Roche limit the closest a fluid body can orbit to its primary without being pulled apart by tidal forces. A solid body may survive within the Roche limit if the tidal forces do not exceed its structural strength.
This distance is called the Roche limit, after M.E. Roche who developed the theory of tidal break up in the 1849.
Within the "Roche Limit" the mass will break apart, while at greater distances, stable rotation is possible. Gravity on a celestial scale can be pretty powerful, so large solid moons are not likely to be found inside the Roche Limit of a planet.
This radius is called the Roche Limit. Thus, solid objects put into orbit inside the Roche limit will be torn apart by tidal forces, and conversely, solid objects cannot grow by accreting into larger objects if they orbit inside the Roche limit.
Oddly enough, four of Neptune's moons are orbiting the planet within its Roche limit.
In July 1992 the orbit of Shoemaker-Levy 9 passed within Jupiter's Roche limit, and Jupiter's tidal forces acted to pull the comet apart. SL9 was later observed as a series of fragments ranging up to 2 km (1.2 mi) in diameter.
It has to do with a gravitational boundary around a planet known as the Roche Limit. Objects that are a certain distance from the planet (within the Roche Limit) can be easily broken up if they are not made of very strong material.
They may form by the breakup of a moon that came within the planet’s Roche limit or from particles that were originally there.
extremely close to Jupiter on July 7, 1992, just over 40,000 km above the planet's cloud tops — a smaller distance than Jupiter's radius of 70,000 km, and well within the orbit of Jupiter's innermost moon Metis and the planet's Roche limit, ...
Eventually the planet will reach the Roche limit - the distance within which the planet's self gravity will be exceeded by the pull of the star - and material will feed onto the star.
An eclipsing binary whose secondary is close to its Roche limit. [H76]
Eri ...
One theory, originally proposed by Édouard Roche in the 19th century, is that the rings were once a moon of Saturn whose orbit decayed until it came close enough to be ripped apart by tidal forces (see Roche limit).
1849 - Edouard Roche finds the limiting radius of tidal destruction and tidal creation for a body held together only by its self gravity, called the Roche limit, and uses it to explain why Saturn's rings do not condense into a satellite ...
 See also: Planet, Orbit, Distance, Moon, Earth
  
|
RSS
