HR: 0830h
AN: G41B-0031    [PDF]
TI: Mercury's Tides And Core
AU: * Van Hoolst, T
EM: tim.vanhoolst@oma.be
AF: Royal Observatory of Belgium, Ringlaan 3, Brussels, 1180 Belgium
AU: * Van Hoolst, T
EM: tim.vanhoolst@oma.be
AF: Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Institute of Astronomy, Celestijnenlaan 200B, Leuven, 3001 Belgium
AB: Mercury's solid body tides are the largest of the solar system planets. Since tides are very sensitive to the presence of a liquid core and its dimension, observation of the tides by upcoming missions to Mercury such as MESSENGER and BepiColombo holds the promise of improving our knowledge of Mercury's deep interior. We present a catalogue of Mercury tides and study the dependence of the tides on the interior structure models. For a large set of models, we calculated tidal displacements, gravity variations, and external potential variations. The models calculated differ mainly in core dimension, composition, and inner core dimension. Data on core material relevant for the pressures and temperatures in Mercury's core is used. Sulfur is considered as the main light element, and we investigate the effects of sulfur dissolving in the solid inner core. The tidal results are combined with results from gravity and libration measurements to study further constraints on the models of Mercury. We also briefly address tidal dissipation in Mercury.
DE: 1227 Planetary geodesy and gravity (5420, 5714, 6019)
DE: 5417 Gravitational fields (1227)
DE: 5430 Interiors (8147)
DE: 6235 Mercury
SC: Geodesy [G]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting