Cassini's laws provide a compact description of the motion of the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width ...

. They were established in 1693 by

Giovanni Domenico Cassini Giovanni Domenico Cassini, also known as Jean-Dominique Cassini (8 June 1625 – 14 September 1712) was an Italian (naturalised French) mathematician, astronomer and engineer. Cassini was born in Perinaldo, near Imperia, at that time in the ...

, a prominent scientist of his time.For the original statement of the laws, see Refinements of these laws to include physical

libration In lunar astronomy, libration is the wagging or wavering of the Moon perceived by Earth-bound observers and caused by changes in their perspective. It permits an observer to see slightly different hemispheres of the surface at different tim ...

s have been made, and they have been generalized to treat other satellites and planets.

Cassini's laws

# The Moon has a 1:1 spin–orbit resonance. This means that the

rotation Rotation, or spin, is the circular movement of an object around a '' central axis''. A two-dimensional rotating object has only one possible central axis and can rotate in either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. A three-dimensional ...

–

orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an object or position in space such a ...

ratio of the Moon is such that the same side of it always faces the

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surf ...

. # The Moon's rotational axis maintains a constant angle of

inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a Plane of reference, reference plane and the orbital plane or Axis of rotation, axis of direction of the orbiting object ...

from the ecliptic plane. The Moon's rotational axis precesses so as to trace out a cone that intersects the ecliptic plane as a circle. # A plane formed from a normal to the ecliptic plane and a normal to the Moon's

orbital plane The orbital plane of a revolving body is the geometric plane in which its orbit lies. Three non-collinear points in space suffice to determine an orbital plane. A common example would be the positions of the centers of a massive body (host) an ...

will contain the Moon's rotational axis. In the case of the Moon, its rotational axis always points some 1.5 degrees away from the North

ecliptic pole An orbital pole is either point at the ends of an imaginary line segment that runs through the center of an orbit (of a revolving body like a planet, moon or satellite) and is perpendicular to the orbital plane. Projected onto the celestial sphe ...

. The normal to the Moon's orbital plane and its rotational axis are always on opposite sides of the normal to the ecliptic. Therefore, both the normal to the orbital plane and the Moon's rotational axis precess around the ecliptic pole with the same period. The period is about 18.6 years and the motion is retrograde.

Cassini state

A system obeying these laws is said to be in a Cassini state, that is: an evolved rotational state where the spin axis, orbit normal, and normal to the Laplace plane are coplanar while the obliquity remains constant. The Laplace plane is defined as the plane about which a planet or satellite orbit precesses with constant inclination. The normal to the Laplace plane for a moon is between the planet's spin axis and the planet's orbit normal, being closer to the latter if the moon is distant from the planet. If a planet itself is in a Cassini state, the Laplace plane is the

invariable plane The invariable plane of a planetary system, also called Laplace's invariable plane, is the plane passing through its barycenter (center of mass) perpendicular to its angular momentum vector. In the Solar System, about 98% of this effect is contr ...

of the stellar system. Cassini state 1 is defined as the situation in which both the spin axis and the orbit normal axis are on the same side of the normal to the Laplace plane. Cassini state 2 is defined as the case in which the spin axis and the orbit normal axis are on opposite sides of the normal to the Laplace plane. Earth's Moon is in Cassini state 2. In general, the spin axis moves in the direction perpendicular to both itself and the orbit normal, due to the

tidal force The tidal force is a gravitational effect that stretches a body along the line towards the center of mass of another body due to a gradient (difference in strength) in gravitational field from the other body; it is responsible for diverse phenom ...

exerted by the object being orbited (planet or star) and other objects in the system. (In the case of the Moon, its spin axis moves mostly under the influence of the Earth, whereas the smaller tidal influence of the Sun works in the same direction at full moon and in the opposite direction at new moon and is thus negligible.) The rate of movement of the spin axis goes to zero if the spin axis coincides with the orbit normal. If the orbit normal precesses in a regular circular motion (due to tidal influences from other objects, such as the Sun in the case of the Moon), it is possible to characterize the solutions to the differential equation for the motion of the spin axis. It turns out that the spin axis traces out loops on the unit sphere that rotates at the speed of the orbital precession (so that the orbit normal and the normal to the Laplace plane are fixed points in the sphere). With certain values of the parameters, there are three areas on the sphere in each of which we have circulation around a point inside the area where the spin axis doesn't move (in this rotating frame of reference). These points are Cassini states 1 and 2 and a third Casssini state in which the rotation is retrograde (which would not apply to a moon like ours that is tidally locked). The three areas are separated by a separatrix that crosses itself, and the point where it crosses itself is the unstable Cassini state 4. (Under other parameter values only states 2 and 3 exist, and there is no separatrix.) If an object flexes and dissipates kinetic energy, then these solutions are not exact and the system will slowly evolve and approach a stable Cassini state. This has happened with the Moon. It has reached a state with a constant obliquity of 6.7°, at which the precession of the spin axis takes the same 18.6 years as taken by the precession of the orbit normal, and is thus in a Casssini state.See Based on work by G. Colombo in 1966.

Cassini's laws

Cassini state

References and notes

Further reading

See also