Sesquinary Catastrophe for Close-in Moons with Dynamically Excited Orbits

Abstract We identify a new mechanism that can lead to the destruction of small, close-in planetary satellites. If a small moon close to the planet has a sizable eccentricity and inclination, its ejecta that escape to the planetocentric orbit would often reimpact with much higher velocity due to the satellite’s and fragment’s orbits precessing out of alignment. If the impacts of returning ejecta result in net erosion, a runaway process can occur that may end in disruption of the satellite, and we term this process “sesquinary catastrophe.” We expect the moon to reaccrete, but on an orbit with significantly lower eccentricity and inclination. We find that the large majority of small close-in moons in the solar system have orbits that are immune to sesquinary catastrophe. The exceptions include a number of resonant moonlets of Saturn for which resonances may affect the velocities of reimpact of their own debris. Additionally, we find that Neptune’s moon Naiad (and to a lesser degree, Jupiter’s Thebe) must have substantial internal strength, in line with prior estimates based on Roche limit stability. We also find that sesquinary instability puts important constraints on the plausible past orbits of Phobos and Deimos or their progenitors.