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Re: Asteroid resonance - Reuter's

Ron wrote:

"Jupiter is obviously perturbing asteroids
whose orbits are in resonance with Jupiter's orbits, clearing out
certain areas in the asteroid belt."

Yes.  The article is very specific about there being a difference between
the 'strong' gravity of Jupiter with regard to resonance and repelling
(bumping or
knocking) asteroids into the Sun (Do not pass Earth.  Go directly to the
Sun:-) or catapulting them out of the solar system.  (I wasn't going to
bring up Jupiter because I believe you told me last week that causing an
asteroid to 'wobble' would not knock it out of orbit)

My question had to do with the weaker forces of Mars and Earth -
specifically, with regard to the resonance that exists between orbitting
asteroids and these two planets.

"Their
model correctly predicts the 10 known asteroids in near-Earth orbits and 354
in orbits that bring them close to Mars.

Greenberg said the finding helps astronomers explain how the population of
near-Earth asteroids is replenished.

If new asteroids weren't constantly being knocked into the paths of Earth
and Mars, all of them would have long ago crashed into the planets and there
would be none left to write disaster movies about.

Greenberg, who wrote a commentary about the findings, said scientists had
always assumed that weaker resonances were not strong enough to affect the
asteroids.
<<Snip>>
"It turns out that weaker resonances are just right," he said in a telephone
interview.

"They're not too strong that they kick the asteroids into the sun or out of
the solar system, and they're not too weak so that the asteroids just stay
in the asteroid belt," he added.

"There are at least half a dozen of these weaker resonances. We hadn't
understood their strength."

Obviously, Mars and Earth are not bumping asteroids out of the asteroid
belt. (using gravity as Jupiter is.) The latter resonance refers to the
gravity of the two planets pulling
asteroids inward.  What is the distinction between gravity and resonance
with regard to the 'weaker' gravity of these two planets?

Best Regards,
Julia







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