Abstract
The dynamical symbiosis between our Earth and its only natural satellite has been at the basis of all topics discussed so far in this chapter; for the motion of the Moon in space, and even more that about its center of gravity, are largely controlled by the Earth — with distant, but powerful, cooperation of the Sun. The aim of the present section will, however, be to focus specific attention on certain dynamical aspects of the Earth-Moon symbiosis which were so far not discussed (or only briefly referred to) in the text, and which are concerned with the gravitational interaction of the two bodies, or properties of their motion over long intervals of time.
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Bibliographical Notes
For the anisotropy of the escape velocity from the Moon with the direction, cf., e.g., Gold (1960).
The present treatment of the elliptically restricted problem of three bodies goes back to transformation of coordinates introduced originally by Nechvile (1917, 1926) and followed up later by Ovenden and Roy (1961), Kopal and Lyttleton (1963), Szebehely and Giacaglia (1964), Danby (1964), Bennett (1965), Contopoulos (1965) and others. The presentation of the subject as given in this chapter follows largely that by Kopal and Lyttleton (1963).
Investigations of the past evolution of the Earth-Moon system due to the action of tidal friction have been opened up with two monumental papers by G. H. Darwin (1879, 1880) and followed up in more recent times by Gerstenkorn (1955), Öpik (1961), Field (1963), Alfvén (1963, 1964), MacDonald (1964a, b) and Kaula (1964). The essential results presented in this section are due to Gerstenkorn; subsequent and more extensive computations by MacDonald filled in many details. All these results are based on the assumed extrapolability of tidal friction at its present rate in the past. Different views critical of this concept have been raised by the Russian school of investigators; cf. Ruskol (1960, 1962, 1963a, b), Sorokin (1965) et al.
For recent studies of the secular changes of specific orbital elements of the Earth-Moon system caused by tidal friction, cf., Groves (1960, 1962), Jeffreys (1961), Goldreich (1963) and others. The meaning and magnitude of the Roche limit for self-gravitating elastic solid bodies has been established by Jeffreys (1947).
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© 1966 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Kopal, Z. (1966). Dynamics of the Earth-Moon System. In: An Introduction to the Study of the Moon. Astrophysics and Space Science Library. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-6320-2_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-6320-2_6
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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