Modern Celestial Mechanics: From Theory to Applications: Proceedings of the Third Meeting on Celestical Mechanics CELMEC III, held in Rome, Italy, 1 [Hardcover]

At the opening of the Third Meeting on Celestial Mechanics - CELMEC III , strong sensations hit our minds. The conference (18-22 June 2001) was being held in Villa Mondragone, a beautiful complex of buildings and gardens located within the township of Monte Porzio Catone, on the hills surrounding Rome. A former papal residence, the building has been recently restored by the University of Rome Tor Vergata to host academic activities and events. The conference room is called Salone degli Svizzeri : here, Gregory XIII, on February 24, 1582, gave its sanction to the reform of the Julian calendar and declared officially in use the calendar still adopted nowadays. The magnificent high walls and tall ceiling strongly resounded, giving to our voice a peculiar Vatican sound, which took us by surprise. May be - we thought - a distant echo of the very words of Gregory XIII proclaiming the modem calendar was still haunting the room. Around us, in the audience, many countries were represented, thus indicating that the idea of putting together the three souls of modem Celestial Mechanics - perturbation theories, solar and stellar system studies, spaceflight dynamic- had been successful. CELMEC III is in fact the latest of a series of meetings (the first two editions took place in 1993 and 1997 in L' Aquila, Italy) whose aim is to establish a common ground among people working in Celestial Mechanics, yet belonging to different institutions such as universities, astronomical observatories, research institutes, space agencies and industries.GOCE: The Earth Gravity Field by Space Gradiometry.- Symmetries and Rank Deficiency in the Orbit Determination Around Another Planet.- The Rotation of Europa.- Resonant Fly-By Missions to Near Earth Asteroids.- Analysis of the Space Debris Impacts Risk on the International Space Station.- On the Stability of the Terrestrial Planets as Models for Exosolar Planetary Systems.- Generalized Averaging Principle and the Secular Evolution of Planetl“Í