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Where are the Satellites of the Inner Planets?

Abstract

AMONG the more perplexing features of the Solar System's morphology is the scarcity of satellites in the inner Solar System: neither Mercury nor Venus seems to have satellites, the Earth has only one, and Mars is orbited merely by the tiny Phobos and Deimos. This situation is in sharp contrast to the case of the outer planets which have extensive satellite systems. Often the distinction between the inner and outer satellite systems is taken as proof of a different origin for the two groups of planets or, at the very least, as showing that those physical processes (for example, radiation pressure or Poynting-Robertson drag) which were instrumental in the formation of the outer satellite families were not important in the inner Solar System.

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BURNS, J. Where are the Satellites of the Inner Planets?. Nature Physical Science 242, 23–25 (1973). https://doi.org/10.1038/physci242023a0

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