Draw four moons' nodes at JPL's current rates, which Horizons and the IAU's poles agree with

The archived satellite table the moons are read from gives older node
periods than JPL's current one for Miranda (17.727 years against URA182's
17.787), Ganymede (132.654 against 137.812), Callisto (338.82 against
577.264) and Titan (704.60 against 687.370), and 74ea1d6 turned the IAU's
poles after those older rates, taking them for the right ones. They were
not: fitted to Horizons' osculating elements on Uranus's equator over
1601-2399, Miranda's node turns 2023.97 degrees a century (rms 0.04),
against the current table's 2023.95, the IAU's U11 2024.22 and the row's
2030.80. That commit moved Miranda's axis from 0.38 to 2.36 degrees of
Horizons' orbit normal. Mimas's node, 0.986 years in both tables, now takes
the IAU's S3, 36505.5 degrees a century, 1.2 from a Horizons fit where
the row's is 4.5.

The ETL spec carries the node period (nodePeriodYears), and the periapsis
keeps the row's longitude rate: the row gives the longitude's rate (Callisto
68.7 degrees a century, the current table 67.2), so the argument takes up
the change. On the row's argument Callisto's periapsis moved 44 degrees by
2100 and it strayed 0.71 degrees from Horizons over 1950-2100.

Worst angle from Horizons' osculating orbit normal (ICRF), HEAD then now:
- Miranda, 1601-2399: drawn orbit 2.11 -> 0.12, axis 2.36 -> 0.34.
- Mimas, 1750-2249: orbit 0.33 -> 0.11, axis 0.65 -> 0.40.
- Ganymede, 1600-2199: orbit 0.17 -> 0.11, axis 0.13 -> 0.01.
- Callisto, 1600-2199: orbit 0.53 -> 0.20, axis 0.02 -> 0.03.
- Titan, 1750-2249: orbit 0.048 -> 0.052.
Against the 1950-2100 Horizons tracks the ETL checks: Callisto 0.19 -> 0.08,
Miranda 1.73 -> 1.62, Ganymede 0.30 -> 0.29, Mimas 7.43 -> 7.42, Titan 0.06.

lockedToOrbit now barely moves the IAU's node terms: Miranda's U11 to
-2023.95, Ganymede's J5 to 261.23 (262.1), Mimas's S3 not at all, and
Callisto's J6, 3.1 per cent from its new node rate, to 62.36 (64.3), which
takes Callisto's axis from 0.56 to 0.22 degrees of its drawn orbit.

With the drawn rates right, leaving every node term at the IAU's rate no
longer failed the ETL (Mimas used to), nor did a 1 per cent tolerance, the
node's angle without its harmonics, or the older node periods. The axis
ceiling is now 0.25 degrees for Europa (0.13 measured), Ganymede (0.16),
Callisto (0.22), Rhea (0.17), Miranda (0.23) and Triton (0.15), and
Callisto's track ceiling 0.15 (0.08). Guarded mutants, each through the
solar ETL on the real catalogue and then the suite on the bodies.json it
wrote:
- node terms left at the IAU's rates: ETL "europa's spin axis leans up to
  0.33"; suite fails only 'turns the poles of Europa, Ganymede, Callisto,
  Rhea, Miranda and Triton round with their drawn nodes'.
- tolerance 1 per cent: ETL, Callisto 0.33; the same test, alone.
- harmonics dropped: ETL, Triton 0.29 (the suite's three dates miss it).
- the archived node periods: ETL, Callisto's track 0.19; the suite fails
  that test and 'draws Miranda's orbit, and turns its axis, where Horizons
  has its orbit in 1601 and 2390' (orbit 2.02, axis 2.36 at 1601).
- the row's argument kept: ETL, Callisto's track 0.71.

The docs that called the IAU's rates the wrong ones are corrected
(lockedToOrbit, the axis ceiling in build.ts, whose Titan node now turns
in 687 years), and the README and BodyRecord doc no longer say every
locked moon's node terms are re-rated: only those within 5 per cent of a
multiple of the node's rate, never the Moon's or Phobos's, and not the
circles Ariel's, Umbriel's, Titania's and Oberon's poles go round on
(0.36 to 0.50 degrees off their orbits). The README also names the five
bodies the IAU's elements do not turn. Unit suite 866 passed.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
2026-09-30 19:22:57 +02:00
co-authored by Claude Opus 5.5
parent ac23496b37
commit 24c7be1bae
7 changed files with 182 additions and 68 deletions
+7 -5
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@@ -105,11 +105,13 @@ export interface BodyRecord {
/**
* Where the body's pole points and which way its prime meridian faces at any date, from the IAU
* WGCCRE 2015 report (Archinal et al. 2018) as NAIF's `pck00011.tpc` carries it, but that a locked
* moon's W, and its pole's terms on its node, turn at its drawn orbit's rates and Iapetus's pole
* goes round with its orbit's, so they keep their faces to their planets, and their poles round
* their orbits', over the clock's AD 1 to 3000 (see `lockedToOrbit` in the
* ETL). Where present it alone sets how the body is drawn, and the ETL checks the period and
* obliquity above against it. Absent where the report gives none: Hyperion tumbles, and Nereid,
* moon's W, and its pole's terms that turn within 5 per cent of a multiple of its node's rate, turn
* at its drawn orbit's rates and Iapetus's pole goes round with its orbit's, so they keep their
* faces to their planets, and their poles round their orbits', over the clock's AD 1 to 3000 (see
* `lockedToOrbit` in the ETL). The Moon's and Phobos's, whose W has a quadratic, are the IAU's
* whole, and so are the terms Ariel's, Umbriel's, Titania's and Oberon's poles go round on, which
* turn at none of their nodes' multiples. Where present it alone sets how the body is drawn, and
* the ETL checks the period and obliquity above against it. Absent where the report gives none: Hyperion tumbles, and Nereid,
* Eris, Haumea and Makemake have no model.
*/
rotationalElements?: RotationalElements;