Black rain: The burial of the Galilean satellites in irregular satellite debris

Abstract

Irregular satellites are dormant comet-like bodies that reside on distant prograde and retrograde orbits around the giant planets. They are likely to be captured objects.

Dynamical modeling work indicates they may have been caught during a violent reshuffling of the giant planets similar to 4 Gy ago (Ga) as described by the so-called Nice model.

Keywords

• Ganymede
• Jupiter
• Satellites
• Irregular satellites
• Callisto
• Europa