Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 17, 2004

An object which comes within the Roche limits is pulled apart

The Roche limit is the distance within which an object (typically a satellite in orbit) near a celestial body (typically a moon, planet or star) and held together only by its own gravity will start to disintegrate due to tidal forces exceeding the satellite's gravitational self-attraction. Within the Roche limit the net forces experienced by opposite ends of the satellite, gravity acting more strongly on the side closest to the body orbited and less strongly on the far side, are stronger than the force holding the satellite together, the satellite's own gravitational attraction. The term is named after Édouard Roche, the French astronomer who first discovered this theoretical limit in 1848. (more...)

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