Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc.

354, 419426 (2004)

doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2004.08198.x

The formation of regular satellites

M. M. Woolfson
Physics Department, University of York, York YO10 5DD

Accepted 2004 July 7. Received 2004 July 7; in original form 2004 January 8

ABSTRACT

Most models of planet formation envisage that early protoplanets were encompassed by a dusty gaseous disc. A simulation of planet formation by the capture-theory model has shown the formation of such a disc and suggests that its mass was close to that of the protoplanet and that it was a few au in extent. This investigation proposes that satellites were formed in the way proposed for planet formation in the solarnebula theory. First, dust in the disc settled into the mean plane, a process that was accelerated by accumulation of the dust into larger particles. The dust carpet was gravitationally unstable and broke up into regions that formed satellitesimals, solid bodies of from tens of metres to kilometre size. These nally collected together to form satellites. Numerical studies show that disc formation and the formation of satellitesimals took place on a very short time-scale, a few thousand years and a few years, respectively, but the nal stage of satellite formation was much slower, taking up to 105 yr. Satellitesimals formed within the gaseous disc and, as they accumulated to form satellites, so their orbits steadily decayed. In the nal stages, when the orbits of the fully formed satellites were decaying, coupling between the satellites led to commensurabilities in the orbits, as is observed for the inner three Galileans. Key words: planets and satellites: formation.

1 R E G U L A R S AT E L L I T E S A N D P L A N E T S The majority of the larger planetary satellites have the characteristic that they are in closely circular direct orbits, in or close to the equatorial plane of the parent planet. The satellites of Jupiter out to Callisto, the satellites of Saturn out to Titan and the ve ground-observed satellites of Uranus fall into this category of regular satellites. Notable irregular satellites include the Moon, Triton, Iapetus and Phoebe. It is commonly assumed that the formation of regular satellites is linked to the formation of planets. The similarity of planetsatellite systems to the Sunplanet system has also been the subject of comment from time to time. When Galileo rst observed the large satellites of Jupiter he saw it as a smaller version of the whole solar system and was conrmed in his belief of the Copernican model. The apparent similarity of the two kinds of system has encouraged the idea that they originated by similar processes that differed only in scale. Thus Jeans (1928) expressed the view that any theory that proposed a mechanism for the origin of satellites that differed from that for producing planets would be condemned by its own articiality. Later Alfv en (1978) stated that We should not try to make a theory of the origin of planets around the Sun but a general theory for the formation of secondary bodies around a central body. This theory should be applicable both for the formation of satellites

E-mail: mmw1@york.ac.uk
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and the formation of planets. In fact, in the dominant solarnebula model for planet formation it is normally assumed that satellites are formed in a protoplanetary disc in much the same way as planets are formed in a protostellar disc, thus satisfying both the Jeans and the Alfv en propositions. Although there is a visual similarity in the two types of system there are important differences when their physical properties are compared. The central (primary) body in each case is spinning and the spin can be quantied by the intrinsic angular momentum per unit mass of equatorial material, J P . For a secondary body the orbit can be specied by the angular momentum per unit mass of the orbit, J S . We now dene S = J S / J P and in Table 1 we show values of S for various primarysecondary combinations. The differences in the values of S for the two types of system, as revealed by Table 1, does, at least, bring into question whether or not the two types of system are formed by similar processes. The large values of S for the Sunplanet combinations is just another manifestation of the curious partitioning of mass and angular momentum in the solar system in which the planets, with 0.0014 of the mass of the system, have 0.995 of the total angular momentum contained in their orbits. For the solarnebula model this feature is dealt with by invoking some mechanism to transfer angular momentum from the nebula core, which produces the Sun, to outer material, either that from which planets are formed or material extraneous to the forming system. In the alternative capture theory (CT) model for producing planets (Oxley & Woolfson 2004) the large values of S for the

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Table 1. Angular momentum ratio, S, for various primarysecondary combinations. Primary Sun Sun Jupiter Jupiter Saturn Uranus Secondary Jupiter Neptune Io Callisto Titan Oberon S 7800 18 700 8 17 11 21

2 A BA S I C M E C H A N I S M F O R S AT E L L I T E F O R M AT I O N Satellites are predominantly solid bodies consisting of silicates and ices with some iron in their cores. Thus they must be formed from the solids that account for approximately 1 per cent of the total mass of the discs. If, for example, a Jupiter disc had the mass of Jupiter then the total mass of solids within it would be of the order of 2 1025 kg, or some 50 times the combined mass of the Galilean satellites, 4 1023 kg. However, we shall see that much of the disc is lost due to thermal effects and the tidal inuence of the Sun and, as previously indicated, there is also the possibility that the ratio of disc mass to core mass could be less than unity. There already exists a body of theory that deals with the formation of solid bodies from a gaseous disc, related to planet formation in the solarnebula model. These bodies are either terrestrial planets or the cores of major planets that subsequently capture a gaseous envelope. Because of problems related to the time-scales of planetary formation various modications of the basic theory have been proposed from time to time. However, the basic concept consists of four steps. (i) Dust in the disc settles into the mean plane forming a dense layer of dust particles. (ii) The layer of particles is gravitationally unstable and condenses into solid bodies of kilometre size called planetesimals. (iii) Planetesimals collect together to form either terrestrial planets or the cores of major planets. (iv) Major planet cores collect a gaseous envelope. For satellite formation only the rst three steps are relevant; we shall not concern ourselves with the dense atmosphere of Titan or the tenuous atmospheres of other satellites. As previously stated, there have been problems of various kinds in applying these steps to planet formation, but here we shall be investigating the extent to which these problems do, or do not, arise with the parameters appropriate to satellite formation.

Sunplanet combinations arise naturally. The mode of formation of solar-type stars, by collision of turbulent elements in a collapsing cloud (Woolfson 1979; Pringle 1989; Pongracic et al. 1991), gives comparatively slow spin rates. In contrast, planets are produced as condensations within a lament when a region of higher density either a newly formed protostar or compressed gas in the interface of colliding gas streams tidally interacts with a compact star. The intrinsic angular momentum of the planets is derived from that of the orbit of the high-density material relative to the compact star and is many orders of magnitude higher than the intrinsic spin angular momentum of the stellar equatorial material. Actually, if the protoplanet orbits did not subsequently decay (Woolfson 2003) the values of S for the Sun as a primary body would be even larger than those given in Table 1. Modelling by smoothed particle hydrodynamics of the CT shows that in the nal stages of collapse of the protoplanet the core is surrounded by a disc. Where the core mass is 2.5 Jupiter masses ( M J ) the disc mass is similar to that of the core (Fig. 1). The boundary between core and disc is not sharply delineated so the mass ratio between core and disc can be anywhere between 1:1 and 3:1. The analysis that follows is insensitive to the precise ratio and we take 1:1 as a working hypothesis. The material in this disc was noted by Oxley & Woolfson (2004) as a potential source of satellites and this suggestion is further explored here. The processes to be considered would also apply to any other model of planet formation, e.g. the solarnebula model, which gave rise to planets surrounded by a massive dusty disc.

3 SETTLING OF DUST INTO THE MEAN PLANE NO STICKING MECHANISM The processes that lead to the settling of the dust in a disc into the mean plane have been the subjects of considerable discussion in relation to planetary formation in a circumsolar disc. A rst simple view was that the dust in its original submicron form simply settled under gravity to form a dust carpet. However, this view was hotly disputed by Weidenschilling and colleagues (e.g. Weidenschilling, Donn & Meakin 1989; Weidenschilling 1995) on the grounds that turbulence in the disc would prevent the gradual settling of the dust. In any case, even without turbulence it was estimated that the timescale for forming a dust carpet would be of the order of 107 yr, a time that is greater than the observed lifetimes of discs around young stars. As an alternative it was proposed that collisions between dust particles built up larger bodies that decoupled from the gas and hence were unaffected by turbulence. The idea of dust particles coming together to form larger particles originated with McCrea & Williams (1965) in the context of forming a planetary core. They pointed out that the dust particles in a protoplanet would have distributions of both size and density and hence would settle at different rates. Larger or denser particles, settling more quickly, would sweep up slower particles, so becoming larger and then settling even faster. Similar ideas have been put forward by Weidenschilling in relation
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Figure 1. A capture-theory simulation of the nal stages of collapse of a protoplanet (Oxley 1999).

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to the motion of particles within a disc and this leads to much reduced times for forming a dense layer. Here, in relation to forming satellites, we shall rst consider the simple model of the settling of dust with similar particles all of the same form and without any sticking mechanism. By considering this for different radii of particles we shall see that the particles of the smallest size do not give a satisfactory outcome but that larger particles do so. Then we shall consider the time-scale for particle growth by accretion and hence show convincingly that a dust carpet will form in the mean plane of the protoplanetary disc within a short time. The basic equations relating to the properties and behaviour of a dusty disc used in this analysis (1), (4), (8), (14) and (16) will not be derived and are due to Weidenschilling et al. (1989). Although it is usual to refer to discs around stars they are not really discs in the true sense of that word. Rather they have a ared shape, increasing in thickness with increasing distance from the star. The same will be true for a disc around a planet. For a disc of mass small relative to that of the planet (not the situation here), the characteristic half-width of the disc at distance R from a planet of mass M P would be given by h= c , 2 (1)

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Table 2. The mean-plane density, molecular mean-free path and included mass of solids for a model disc. R (m) 108 3 108 109 3 109 1010 3 1010 1011 3 1011 ( R , 0) kg m3 1.12 102 2.16 103 3.52 104 6.64 105 1.02 105 1.60 106 1.31 107 3.41 109 l (m) 8.90 108 4.64 107 2.84 106 1.51 105 9.83 105 6.24 104 7.65 103 2.94 101 M (R) (kg) 9.99 1018 8.98 1019 9.93 1020 8.82 1021 9.36 1022 7.39 1023 5.28 1024 1.60 1025

In a very diffuse medium, where the molecular mean-free path is much greater than a particle diameter, a dust particle, of radius s and density s moves towards the mean plane with speed Vz = G MP s s z. c ( R , z ) R 3 (8)

where c is the speed of sound in the disc material given by c= and = G MP R3 (3) kT (2)

It also has a radial velocity due to Keplerian shear but, as this is two to three orders of magnitude less than V z , we shall not consider it further. To apply equation (8), and to test its validity, we take the following parameters for the disc and its material: MP = 2 1027 kg Md = 2 1027 kg = 1.5 s = 5 107 m T = 20 K s = 2 103 kg m3 . = 1011 m1 = 3 1027 kg

Table 2 shows for various distances R from the planet centre, (i) the density of the disc in the mean plane, ( R , 0), (ii) the molecular mean free path, , l= A ( R , 0)

is referred to as the local Kepler frequency. The temperature of the disc gas material is T , its mean molecular mass and is the ratio of specic heats. Equation (1) will not be strictly valid for a massive disc as disc material is affected not only by the planet mass but also by the disc mass, predominantly that within its orbit. Discounting the mass of the disc overestimates its width and also overestimates the settling time so we shall be nding an upper bound for the settling time. The disc density at distance R from the planet and distance z from the mean plane is ( R , z ) = ( R , 0) exp z2 h2 . (4)

(9)

where A is the collision cross-section, taken as 3 1018 m3 for an HH 2 mixture and (iii) the total mass of solids M (R) within the distance R given by M ( R ) = 0.01 Md {1 exp( R )[1 + R ]} (10)

A numerical study of the distribution of particles in Fig. 1 shows that the disc around the planet has an areal density that falls off rapidly with distance and has dimensions of a few au. We shall model the areal density of such a disc, of total mass M d , by d ( R ) = Md 2 exp( R ). 2 (5)

The areal density may be related to the gas density in the plane by

d ( R ) =

( R , z ) dz = ( R , 0)

exp

z2 h2

For the submicron grains, with radii taken as 0.5 m, the assumption that the molecular mean free path is much greater than the diameter of the grains only applies somewhere beyond R = 3 108 m. As the solid material contained within this distance has only 0.25 per cent of the combined mass of the Galilean satellites it is clear that for the great bulk of the material that can go towards forming these satellites the conditions for equation (8) are satised. Equations (7) and (8) enable a numerical investigation of the settling process using the parameters for the disc given above. What is shown in Fig. 2(a) is the settling of the dust particles originally at distance h from the mean plane. The positions of the particles are show at intervals of 2.5 105 yr up to 106 yr. Just as the gas disc has a ared structure so has a dust layer. The shape of this can be found from (1) with an equivalent value of = 4 3 s s . 3 This is included in the calculation by terminating the settling process when the appropriate h value for dust particles is reached. It will be seen that the distance of complete settling at any time is quite sharply dened. The time of 1 106 yr was chosen because computations of the evolution of planetary orbits (Woolfson 2003) showed that orbital evolution was complete on approximately that

dz (6)

= ( R , 0)1/ 2 h . Combining (1) and (3)(6) gives ( R, z) = Md 2 5/ 2 c 4 G MP z 2 G MP exp R 2 2 3 3 R c R .

(7)

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Figure 2. The settling of particles, originally at distance h from the mean plane. The curves, starting from the top correspond to times, 0, 2.5 105 , 5 105 , 7.5 105 and 106 yr. (a) Disc temperature 20 K, (b) disc temperature 120 K.

time-scale. The example we have taken here corresponds to a protoJupiter and once it was in, or close to, its nal orbit the temperature environment would be either as for Jupiter now, or perhaps, at a higher temperature if the Sun was in an active mode. To allow for uncertainties of temperature the settling process has been repeated at a temperature of 120 K in Fig. 2(b) from which it will be seen that the behaviour is very similar to that at the lower temperature. At this stage we should consider the stability and lifetime of the disc around the planet. The capture-theory model gives protoplanets initially on very eccentric orbits that take them up to 2000 or 3000 au from the Sun and hence maintain a low temperature environment for tens of thousands of years before the rst perihelion passage. By this time a proto-Jupiter would have collapsed to the point where its luminosity would be of the order of L J = 1022 W (Schoeld & Woolfson 1982) giving a temperature at distance R of 1 2 Lj R 2
1/ 4

gives 2G M p <5 R 3kT ,

which combined with (11) gives loss of material for distances R> 2 G MP 75k
2

LJ

1/ 2

(12)

T =

(11)

where is Stefans constant. A rule of thumb for the loss of a planetary atmosphere is that it will be lost over a fairly short timescale if the escape speed from the planet is less than approximately ve times the thermal speed. Assuming once again a light disc, this

For the parameters we are using this gives R > 2.5 109 m. This value is of the same order, but greater than, the limit of settling after 1 106 yr, which is approximately 1.6 109 m. This suggests a limiting distance for the formation of satellites at approximately this distance, which is comparable to the orbital radius of Callisto, 1.88 109 m. An uncertain factor in this analysis is the lifetime of the circumplanetary discs that would inuence the conclusions that are being drawn if they were so short lived that the processes required to form a satellite did not have time to take place. The only guide we have to the potential lifetime is the observed lifetime of circum-stellar discs that are of the order of 1 106 yr. Simple analysis, assuming that discs have the characteristics of simple atmospheres indicate that they are permanently stable which observation shows not to
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be true. Here we shall be assuming that the disc lifetime is not a limiting factor. Another factor that causes the loss of disc material is the tidal effect of the Sun. Once the planet has settled into its nal orbit it will be unable to retain material at a distance beyond rP = RPS 2.46 MP M , (13)

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where R PS is the planetSun distance (Cole & Woolfson 2002). For Jupiter r P = 3.2 1010 m, greater than the distance of the loss of material due to thermal effects, as given by (12). It is concluded that material can be retained within the disc at distance less than 2.5 1010 m and from Table 2 this gives sufcient material in the form of dust to produce the Galilean satellites. The above analysis seems to yield a reasonable outcome for a proto-Jupiter but it is, in fact, decient in two respects. The rst is that if 106 yr is an upper limit for the dust settling process, and it is a generous limit, then from Fig. 2 it appears than settling will only occur out to a distance of approximately 1.9 109 m, within which the mass of solids, less than 1022 kg, is far too small to account for the Galilean system (total mass 4 1024 kg). The second difculty is that any satellite formed at a distance from the planet corresponding to, say, Callisto would move within the gaseous nebula and, from the results given by Woolfson (2003), its orbit would be expected to decay considerably. Thus to produce the Galilean satellites we should expect an initial system with much more extensive orbits. The coupled decay of the orbits would then give rise to the notable commensurabilities between the orbits of Io, Europa and Ganymede (periods closely in ratios 1:2:4) by the mechanism described by Melita & Woolfson (1996). It seems that a theoretical approach based on the settling of submicron dust particles does not give an outcome consistent with observation.

1 106 yr under the conditions of Fig. 2, with temperature 20 K, except for the particle radii being taken over a range of values. For larger particles settling takes place much more rapidly and in 1 106 yr, even for a disc of radius several au, all particles of radius 0.5 mm or greater will have settled into a dust carpet. Particles at distance z from the mean plane grow exponentially on a time-scale 4c tg = , (14) f 2z where f is the solid:gas ratio usually taken as 0.01 (Weidenschilling et al. 1989). For z = h , using (1) and (3), this gives tg = 8 f = 8 1 R 3/ 2 . f G MP (15)

For the disc parameters that gave Fig. 2 tg is 700 yr at R = 1011 m and 22 000 yr at R = 1012 m. These times are short compared with the expected lifetimes of the discs. The maximum radius of a particle falling from a height z 0 on to the mean plane is given by Smax = f z0 . 4s (16)

For the parameters leading to Fig. 2(a), with z 0 = h and = ( R , h ) we nd Smax ( R ) = f Md 2 exp( R 1). 85/ 2 s (17)

From equation (15) we have seen that the dust particles grow by accretion very quickly so it is of interest to see how quickly they would form a dust carpet. We may estimate this from equation (8) by making some reasonable approximations. We rst replace ( R , z ) by d ( R )/ 2h and replace s by s max . This gives, using equations (1) and (3), Vz = dz smax s = dt d ( R ) G MP z = A( R )z . R3 (18)

4 SETTLING OF DUST INTO THE MEAN PLANE WITH STICKING The analysis just given has all been predicated on submicron dust particles, assumed spherical and of radius 5 107 m. Larger particles give much faster settling and Fig. 3 shows the settlement after

For a xed R this gives an exponential decline in z and we may take as a reasonable time for complete collapse tcoll = 10d R 10 = A( R ) smax s R3 . G Mp

Figure 3. The disc thickness at various distances after 1 106 yr for spherical dust particles of radius 5 107 , 5 106 , 5 105 and 5 104 m.
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Table 3. Characteristics of dust disc formation and included mass. R (m) 1010 3 1010 1011 3 1011 1012 s max (mm) 19.0 15.5 7.7 1.0 1.0 103 t coll (yr) 1670 8680 5.3 104 2.7 105 1.7 106 Table 4. The characteristics of satellitesimal formation. R (m) 3 109 3 109 1010 3 1010 108 (m) 1.69 6.22 103 1.65 105 5.68 106 1.25 108 102 Ms (kg) 9.08 1.22 1010 8.37 1012 9.31 1015 3.72 1018 108 rs (m) 4.80 1.13 102 1.00 103 1.04 104 7.63 104 101 ts (yr) 0.0028 0.0172 0.0896 0.544 2.82

Substituting from equation (14) for s max s with z 0 = h tcoll = 40d R f ( R , h )h R3 . G Mp

The values of , ms , rs and ts for various values of R are given in Table 4. It is evident that satellitesimals will be produced on a short timescale once the dust disc had formed. 6 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F S AT E L L I T E S The nal stage in the formation of satellites is the collection together of satellitesimals. This process has been described by Safronov (1972) in relation to the formation of terrestrial planets or the cores of major planets from planetesimals. He showed that in each region of the protoplanetary disc one accumulation of planetesimals would become dominant and collect all the local material. The Safronov theory predicted formation times for outer planets that were much too long, even exceeding the age of the solar system, so giving rise to a modied runaway-growth theory by Stewart & Wetherill (1988). However, here we shall just be applying the basic Safronov idea. Application of the Safronov model shows that the time of formation of a satellite is given by 8rsatt satt tsatt = , (24) 3 s ( R )(1 + 2 ) where r satt and satt are the radius and density of the nal satellite and is a constant in the range 25. The values of t satt for various values of R are given in Table 5 for a satellite of mass 1023 kg and density 2.5 103 kg m3 , corresponding to an average Galilean satellite, and with 1 + 2 = 8. The million year time-scales for the outer part of the disc do not actually raise any problems. It might be thought that if a satellite were produced at a distance of, say, 2 1010 m in 106 yr then at the end of the formation period there would be no local gas remaining to act as a resisting medium to transport it inwards. However, disc settling and satellitesimal formation times are very short and once satellitesimals have formed their orbits will be decaying while the Safranov accumulation process is operating. By the time a satellite has completely formed it would be at a distance from the planet where the gaseous disc is stable over a longer time-scale so that orbital decay can continue. This point is illustrated by Fig. 4, which shows the decay of an orbit for a satellitesimal, taken with constant mass 1022 kg, moving in a resisting medium with the characteristics that led to Table 2. The computational process is that described by Woolfson (2003) and the resisting medium decays so that the density
Table 5. Formation times for satellites from satellitesimals. R (m) 3 109 3 109 1010 3 1010 108 t satt (yr) 2.51 103 1.54 104 8.15 104 5.32 105 3.37 106 2004 RAS, MNRAS 354, 419426

From equations (4) and (6) d ( R ) ( R , h ) = ( R , 0)e1 = 1/ 2 he so that, nally tcoll = 40 e f R3 . G Mp (19)

Table 3 shows values of s max and t coll for various values of R and with f = 0.01. It is clear from Tables 2 and 3 that, even allowing for the approximations that have been made, sufcient material for the Galilean satellites is available out to a distance of approximately 2 1010 m and that a dust layer will form out to that distance on a time-scale of a few thousand years. The distance beyond which a rapid loss of the disc is likely through either thermal effects or tidal effects is greater than 2 1010 m, so there is nothing that should inhibit the formation of a dust disc. Having established that a disc dust is likely to form on a short time-scale and would contain sufcient mass to produce the Galilean satellites we now consider its further evolution. 5 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F S AT E L L I T E S I M A L S For the large aggregates that are likely to form the dust disc the ared structure would not be very pronounced and the disc would be essentially two dimensional. It was shown by Goldreich & Ward (1973) that a uniform disc of material would become gravitationally unstable and would breakup into separate condensations. In the context of producing planets the bodies produced were called planetesimals; here we shall refer to the bodies as satellitesimals. The dimension of the region that separates out depends on the local Kepler frequency, and the local surface density of solids, s ( R ). It is given by = 42 G s ( R )/
2

(20)

As s ( R ) = f d ( R ) = 0.01 d ( R ), using equations (3) and (5) we nd the mass of a satellitesimal at distance R from the Sun
3 2 ( R )6 exp(3 R )/ MP . m s = s ( R )2 = 2 106 Md

(21)

If it collected into a spherical form its radius would be rs = 3m s 4s ( R )

1/ 3

(22)

The time taken for the complete collapse of a satellitesimal is of the order of ts = . G s ( R ) (23)

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Figure 4. The orbital decay of a satellitesimal.

at distance from the planet R, distance from the mean plane z and at time t relates to that at time zero according to ( R , z , t ) = ( R , z , 0) exp( t ), (25)

with = 106 yr1 . It will be seen that, starting with an orbital radius of 2 1010 m the orbit decays into the region of the Galilean satellites (log R Callisto = 9.3) within 3 105 yr. As the satellitesimals will be drifting inwards as they form into satellites, the formation times for satellites will likely be of the order of 105 yr, corresponding to distances from the planet closer than those where the small original satellitesimals rst formed. 7 CONCLUSIONS The idea that substantial solid bodies can form in a disc surrounding a central body is well established, but consideration has previously mainly been given to planetary formation. Capture-theory simulations of protoplanet formation show protoplanetary discs. These discs have masses of the same order as that of the protoplanet; there is no difculty with this high ratio of disc mass to central mass as the eventual dispersion of the disc comes about through the action of an external body the Sun. The formation of a dust disc and the accumulation of this into satellitesimals takes a very short time according to standard models due to Weidenschilling (1995) and Goldreich & Ward (1973). These models, like almost all models used in astrophysics, are simplications of processes that may be very complicated so any results obtained from such models must be treated with caution. One factor that has not been taken into account is the fact that aggregates of dust particles are not compact but have a loose fractal structure. This increases the time for settling but, even if the time-scales for satellitesimal formation were underestimated by more than an order of magnitude, they would still create no theoretical difculties. The formation of satellites from satellitesimals does not have the same margin of safety if it is assumed that satellites have to be formed in the same location as where the satellitesimals originated. However, the idea that everything takes place in serial fashion and that rst satellites are formed and then, and only then, the process of orbital decay begins is not really tenable. The satellitesimals themselves decay while they are accumulating and the whole system will be shrinking steadily while satellites are being formed. In the nal stages of orbital decay of the newly formed satellites the process
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described by Melita & Woolfson (1996) for producing commensurability of orbits can be expected to occur. The system that we have used here as a standard model is that of the Galilean satellites of Jupiter. We have not been concerned with the details of the system for example, the sequences of masses, densities and compositions as we move outwards from Io to Callisto. This would involve factors that we have not considered and that it would be very difcult to consider in any detail. Thus the initial radial distribution of the composition of the dust, as between ices, silicate and iron, is not included. nor has the luminosity of an early collapsing proto-Jupiter that would vaporize ices close in. The Schoeld & Woolfson (1982) simulation of the collapse of a proto-Jupiter suggested that it would have had a luminosity of 1022 W during the nal stages of collapse, giving temperatures that would have melted water ice out to a distance of 7.9 108 m, i.e. somewhere between Europa and Ganymede. Not much further in the temperature would have been sufciently high to vaporize water. This is consistent with the structures of Ganymede and Callisto, which are approximately one-half ice. It is concluded that, although a description of the formation of the detailed structures of the regular satellite systems of the major planets has not been given, the general mechanism for their formation, as described here, is a plausible one. AC K N OW L E D G M E N T S The referee of this paper made a number of suggestions leading to considerable improvement both of content and presentation. I have pleasure in expressing my gratitude for this assistance. REFERENCES
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A TEX le prepared by the author. This paper has been typeset from a TEX/L

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