Gravity Field and Internal Structure of Mercury from MESSENGER
Radio tracking of the MESSENGER spacecraft has provided a model of Mercury's gravity field. In the northern hemisphere, several large gravity anomalies, including candidate mass concentrations (mascons), exceed 100 mi Hi-Galileos (mgal). Mercury's northern hemisphere crust is thicker at lo...
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Published in | Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 336; no. 6078; pp. 214 - 217 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
2230 Support
American Association for the Advancement of Science
13.04.2012
The American Association for the Advancement of Science |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Radio tracking of the MESSENGER spacecraft has provided a model of Mercury's gravity field. In the northern hemisphere, several large gravity anomalies, including candidate mass concentrations (mascons), exceed 100 mi Hi-Galileos (mgal). Mercury's northern hemisphere crust is thicker at low latitudes and thinner in the polar region and shows evidence for thinning beneath some impact basins. The low-degree gravity field, combined with planetary spin parameters, yields the moment of inertia CIMR² = 0.353 ± 0.017, where M and R are Mercury's mass and radius, and a ratio of the moment of inertia of Mercury's solid outer shell to that of the planet of CJC = 0.452 ± 0.035. A model for Mercury's radial density distribution consistent with these results includes a solid silicate crust and mantle overlying a solid iron-sulfide layer and an iron-rich liquid outer core and perhaps a solid inner core. |
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Bibliography: | 2230 Support NIHMS1020991 2230 ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 ObjectType-Article-2 ObjectType-Feature-1 |
ISSN: | 0036-8075 1095-9203 |
DOI: | 10.1126/science.1218809 |