Physics
Scientific paper
Dec 2008
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agufm.u11c..03s&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract #U11C-03
Physics
1221 Lunar And Planetary Geodesy And Gravity (5417, 5450, 5714, 5744, 6019, 6250), 8147 Planetary Interiors (5430, 5724, 6024)
Scientific paper
On January 14, 2008, the MESSENGER spacecraft passed within 201 km of the surface of the planet Mercury with a closest approach at 4S, 38E. This was the first of three MESSENGER flybys of the planet, and it provided the first observations of Mercury from a spacecraft since the Mariner 10 flybys in 1974 and 1975. The tracking of the spacecraft during MESSENGER's first flyby provided new data on the gravity field of Mercury from which improved values for the low-degree coefficients in the spherical harmonic expansion of the field have been derived. These new values suggest slightly smaller values for the planet's mass and degree-2 gravity coefficients and the need to solve for a shorter-wavelength gravity anomaly to explain the Doppler tracking observations. On October 6, 2008, the MESSENGER spacecraft will make its second flyby of Mercury and is once more expected to pass within 200 km of the surface, again just south of the equator but over a location almost 170 degrees east of the first flyby. Because the spacecraft will pass over a different part of the planet, the tracking data will provide new and distinct observations of the low-degree gravity field that should significantly reduce the uncertainties in the degree-2 terms, which are important for our understanding of the size and state of Mercury's core.
Hauck Steven A.
Johnson Clifton L.
Lemoine Frank G.
Margot Joelle
Oberst Jürgen
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