Mercury's tides and interior structure

An accurate tide‐generating potential series for Mercury has been calculated on the basis of VSOP87 ephemerides for the solar system planets. Due to the 3:2 spin‐orbit resonance, the tides on Mercury cannot be divided into the three classically known tidal frequency bands for the Earth: the diurnal,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Geophysical Research. E. Planets 2003-11, Vol.108 (E11), p.7.1-n/a
Main Authors: Van Hoolst, T., Jacobs, C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Earth, ocean, space
evolution
Exact sciences and technology
geodesy
gravitational field
interior structure
Mercury
tides
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Summary:An accurate tide‐generating potential series for Mercury has been calculated on the basis of VSOP87 ephemerides for the solar system planets. Due to the 3:2 spin‐orbit resonance, the tides on Mercury cannot be divided into the three classically known tidal frequency bands for the Earth: the diurnal, semidiurnal, and long‐period tides. Instead, the tides all have periods of the order of one Mercury day, or, equivalently, one Mercury year, and their amplitudes have been calculated with an accuracy of 10−5 m2s−2. Basic Mercury models with varying inner and outer core radii and core sulfur concentration have been constructed in order to test the sensitivity of tides to these parameters. To determine the reaction of Mercury to the tidal forcing, the Love numbers h, l, and k and the gravimetric factor δ were calculated for the interior models. Tidal displacements, gravity variations, and external gravitational potential variations have also been calculated for the models. It is shown that especially the measurement of the external potential variations will be extremely useful for constraining the inner and outer core.
ISSN:0148-0227
2156-2202
DOI:10.1029/2003JE002126