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| Titel |
Improved algorithms for the retrieval of the h2 Love number of Mercury from laser altimetry data |
| VerfasserIn |
Robin Thor, Reinald Kallenbach, Ulrich Christensen, Jürgen Oberst, Alexander Stark, Gregor Steinbrügge |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2017
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
en
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 19 (2017) |
| Datensatznummer |
250144012
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2017-7789.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| We simulate measurements to be performed by the BepiColombo laser altimeter (BELA)
aboard the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) of the BepiColombo mission and investigate
whether coverage and accuracy will be sufficient to retrieve the h2 Love number of Mercury.
The h2 Love number describes the tidal response of Mercury’s surface and is a function of
the materials in its interior and their properties and distribution. Therefore, it can serve as
an important constraint for models of the internal structure. The tide-generating
potential from the Sun causes periodic radial displacements of up to ∼2 m on Mercury
which can be detected by laser altimetry. In this study, we simultaneously extract
the static global shape, parametrized by local basis functions, and its variability
in time. The usage of cubic splines as local basis functions in both longitudinal
and latitudinal direction provides an improvement over the methodology of Koch
et al. (2010, Planetary and Space Science, 58(14), 2022-2030) who used cubic
splines in longitudinal direction, but only step functions in latitudinal direction. We
achieve a relative 1σ accuracy of the h2 Love number of 1.7% assuming nominal data
acquisition for BELA during a one-year mission, but considering only stochastic noise. |
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