Just after crosses its ascending node, it lies above the nearly fixed orbital plane of . At a nearby conjunction, is inward of , because . The perturbing acceleration toward therefore has an inward component and a downward normal component. In the view along the node toward the star, the downward component opposes 's upward vertical velocity and reduces its orbital inclination; in the face-on view, the inward component perturbs its orbital energy and shifts the conjunction phase. A conjunction before the ascending node reverses the relation between the normal force and vertical velocity. Repeated phase-correlated impulses therefore provide the restoring dynamics of an inclination-type mean-motion resonance.
Figure 1.
Geometry of the inclination-type resonance
. The first two panels show a conjunction just after the outer body crosses its ascending node. The third shows the representative figure-eight projection of the q equals two resonant orbit for p equals one in the frame rotating with the inner body.