The equations of the linearized first post-Newtonian approximation to general relativity are often written in ‘‘gravitoelectromagnetic’’ Maxwell-like form, since that facilitates physical intuition. Damour, Soffel, and Xu (DSX) (as a side issue in their complex but elegant papers on relativistic celestial mechanics) have expressed the first post-Newtonian approximation, including all nonlineari...

Numerical integrations in celestial mechanics often involve the repeated computation of a rotation with a constant angle. A direct evaluation of these rotations yields a linear drift of the distance to the origin. This is due to roundoff in the representation of the sine s and cosine c of the angle θ. In a computer, one generally gets c 2 + s 2 = 1, resulting in a mapping that is slightly contr...

With an environment comparable to that of primordial Earth, a surface strewn with liquid hydrocarbon lakes, and an atmosphere denser than that of any other moon in the solar system, Saturn’s largest moon Titan is a treasure trove of potential scientific discovery and is the target of a proposed NASA mission scheduled for launch in roughly one decade. A chief consideration associated with the de...