Orbital stability in the Solar System for arbitrary inclinations and eccentricities: planetary perturbations versus resonances

Abstract

Applying the technique of dynamical maps we study the orbital stability of test particles in the Solar System in the space (a,e,i) defined by 0.1<a<38 au, 0<e<0.9 and 0<i<180 identifying the unstable and stable regions. We find stable niches where small bodies can survive even for very high eccentricities. Mean motion resonances play a fundamental role providing stability against the planetary perturbations specially for high inclination orbits. A stability stripe around i=150 is present all along the Solar System. We found that the population of objects with semimajor axes between 10 and 30 au is evolving inside a highly unstable region according to our maps. For the inner Solar System we found that the region between the Hildas and Jupiter is more stable for high eccentricity orbits than for low eccentricity ones.