Rotational modeling of Hyperion

Abstract

Saturn’s moon, Hyperion, is subject to strongly-varying solid body torques from its primary and lacks a stable spin state resonant with its orbital frequency. In fact, its rotation is chaotic, with a Lyapunov timescale on the order of 100 days. In 2005, Cassini made three close passes of Hyperion at intervals of 40 and 67 days, when the moon was imaged extensively and the spin state could be measured. Curiously, the spin axis was observed at the same location within the body, within errors, during all three fly-bys—~ 30° from the long axis of the moon and rotating between 4.2 and 4.5 times faster than the synchronous rate. Our dynamical modeling predicts that the rotation axis should be precessing within the body, with a period of ~ 16 days. If the spin axis retains its orientation during all three fly-bys, then this puts a strong constraint on the in-body precessional period, and thus the moments of inertia. However, the location of the principal axes in our model are derived from the shape model of Hyperion, assuming a uniform composition. This may not be a valid assumption, as Hyperion has significant void space, as shown by its density of 544± 50 kg m−3 (Thomas et al. in Nature 448:50, 2007). This paper will examine both a rotation model with principal axes fixed by the shape model, and one with offsets from the shape model. We favor the latter interpretation, which produces a best-fit with principal axes offset of ~ 30° from the shape model, placing the A axis at the spin axis in 2005, but returns a lower reduced χ2 than the best-fit fixed-axes model.