I'm creating a presentation for my astronomy club on the Nice model of the solar system and want to illustrate the effect of mean motion resonance. I'm having trouble finding a lay person's explanation of how orbits change when two planets enter a mean motion resonance (where the orbits of the planets occur in a ratio of low numbers). E.g., a 2:1 resonance describes a planet that orbits 2 times for every 1 time of the other. The result is that the planets' closest pass occurs at the same orbital position so that over time, the orbits get changed. I've drawn this in the attached illustration and have animated it in the attached link.
But I don't know if the orbits get tugged so the the inner planet's farthest point from the sun is near the
point of resonance or opposite it. I believe the answer is not intuitive in that I've heard that two satellites will tend to move away from each other. And in the case of Pluto and Neptune, Pluto's closest approach to the sun is when Neptune is on the other side. So my question is, assuming the planets in my illustration are shown at their closest pass, 2:1 for the inner two, and 2:1 for the outer two, would the orbits of the inner and outer planets change as shown in the red or blue ellipse for each? (I'm assuming the middle planet is like Jupiter while the others are much less massive) Thank you.
http://www.brightstarstemeculavalley.or ... nance.html
