Orbital Dynamics of Planets

Abstract

And at the highest, planetary, level of the structural hierarchy of the Solar system dynamical chaos also manifests itself. At the end of eighties—beginning of nineties of twentieth century, first ever estimates of the Lyapunov time of the Solar planetary system were obtained in massive and complicated numerical experiments. It turned out that it is not at all infinite, and, therefore, the dynamics of the Solar planetary system is chaotic. Moreover, the Solar system’s Lyapunov time is, in fact, small: it is by three orders of magnitude less than the Solar system age. In this Chapter, relevant numerical-experimental results, along with analytical approaches used to explain them, are considered and discussed.