Astronomy: The Roche Limit

Astronomy: The Roche Limit
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Concepts & Techniques
The Roche Limit In celestial mechanics, the Roche limit, also called Roche radius, is the distance from a celestial body within which a second celestial body, held together only by its own force of gravity, will disintegrate because the first body's tidal forces exceed the second body's self-gravitation. Inside the Roche limit, orbiting material disperses and forms rings, whereas outside the limit, material tends to coalesce.

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Commentary

Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
The Roche Limit In celestial mechanics, the Roche limit, also called Roche radius, is the distance from a celestial body within which a second celestial body, held together only by its own force of gravity, will disintegrate because the first body's tidal forces exceed the second body's self-gravitation. Inside the Roche limit, orbiting material disperses and forms rings, whereas outside the limit, material tends to coalesce. The Roche radius depends on the radius of the second body and on the ratio of the bodies' densities.

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Why The Roche Limit matters: These foundational ideas and technique s are the tools astronomers use to measure, classify, and understand everything from nearby planets to the most distant galaxies. The term is named after Édouard Roche (French: [ʁɔʃ], English: ROSH), the French astronomer who first calculated this theoretical limit in 1848.

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Deep dive: The Roche Limit The Roch e Limit continues to be an active area of research in modern astronomy. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roche_limit (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)