A&A Supplement series, Vol. 128, February II 1998, 7-17

Received September 17, 1996; accepted June 16, 1997

The orbit of Phoebe from Earthbased and Voyager observations

R.A. Jacobson

Send offprint request: R.A. Jacobson

301-150 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109-8099, U.S.A.

Abstract:

This article presents the results of a fit of a numerically integrated orbit for the Saturnian satellite Phoebe to Earthbased astrometric observations (from 1904 to 1996) and imaging data acquired by the Voyager 2 spacecraft during its encounter with Saturn. The primary results are the epoch state vector for the integration and a set of mean orbital elements which approximately represent the orbit. An assessment of the quality of the fit and the accuracy of the orbit is also provided.

keywords: ephemerides -- planets and satellites: general -- planets and satellites: individual: phoebe

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Orbit model
• 3. Observations
• 4. Orbit determination
• 5. Processing results
• 6. Accuracy assessment
• 7. Comparison with previous investigations
• 8. Conclusions
• Appendix A: Approximate Titan orbits
• Appendix B: Voyager observations and processing
• References