In the limit of low viscosity, we show that the amplitude of the modes of o
scillation of a rotating fluid, namely inertial modes, concentrate along an
attractor formed by a periodic orbit of characteristics of the underlying
hyperbolic Poincare equation. The dynamics of characteristics is used to el
aborate a scenario for the asymptotic behavior of the eigenmodes and eigens
pectrum in the physically relevant regime of very low viscosities which are
out of reach numerically. This problem offers a canonical ill-posed Cauchy
problem which has applications in other fields.