Mercury's tides and interior structure

Hoolst, Tim Van; Jacobs, Carla

doi:10.1029/2003je002126

Cited by 56 publications

(86 citation statements)

References 33 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The temperature inside Mercury's core is taken equal to 2200 K. The densities of the different core layers are calculated from the density of iron and iron-sulfur at reference conditions (Table 1) by correcting separately for temperature and pressure. In particular, for the liquid outer core, we will not assume as Van Hoolst & Jacobs (2003) that the density of liquid FeS is 3.5% lower than solid FeS, but we will use new observational data for liquid FeS (Nishida et al 2008). …”

Section: Models Of Mercurymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The goal of this section is to derive basic three-layer models of Mercury with varying inner core radius and core sulfur concentration in order to be able to assess the impact of these parameters on the Slichter mode. To develop these models, we will use the methodology developed in Van Hoolst & Jacobs (2003). As many nickel-iron meteorites contain sulfur under the form FeS, sulfur can be considered as a major candidate for light-elements in planetary cores of terrestrial planets (Rivoldini et al 2009).…”

Section: Models Of Mercurymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…is entirely liquid, the density of the mantle, ρ 3 , is assumed to be 3500 kg/m 3 (Van Hoolst & Jacobs 2003;Rivoldini et al 2009). …”

Section: Models Of Mercurymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Period of the Slichter mode of Mercury and its possible observation

Coyette

Hoolst

Déhant

2012

A&A

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Aims. We study the period of the Slichter mode (vibrational mode of the inner core of a planet) of Mercury in relation to its interior structure and assess the possibility to observe this mode with the probes MESSENGER and BepiColombo. Methods. The methodology of Grinfeld & Wisdom (2005, Phys. Earth Planet. Int., 151, 77) for the determination of the period of the polar Slichter modes of a planetary interior consisting of three homogeneous layers is generalized to models with an arbitrary but finite number of layers. Slichter modes periods are calculated for a large set of interior structure models of Mercury. We study the possible excitation of Slichter modes by a colllision with a meteoroid and estimate the minimal size of the meteoroid that could lead to a detection of these modes by BepiColombo. Results. The Slichter mode period obtained is on the order of several hours. Observation of the Slichter mode of Mercury allows constraining the inner core. An impact by a meteoroid with a radius of at least 100 m could excite the Slichter mode to a level observable by BepiColombo (assuming that the Slichter mode is the only excited mode), but since the estimated damping time of the Slichter mode is well below the average time between impacts of at least that size such an impact must have occured recently (less than 0.5 My ago).

show abstract

Section: Models Of Mercurymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Models Of Mercurymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Period of the Slichter mode of Mercury and its possible observation

Coyette

Hoolst

Déhant

2012

A&A

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Table 1. Interior structure parameters (Van Hoolst & Jacobs 2003). wt% weight concentration of Sulfur in the core, R ic and R c the radii of the inner and outer cores, in kilometers; C/MR 2 and I c /MR 2 are the polar principal moments of inertia for the whole planet and for the core, respectively; ∆A ϕ (as) is the relative peak-to-peak amplitude obtained as the difference between the numerical integration result for the model considered and the result for the MIS a model.…”

Section: -Day Libration In Longitudementioning

confidence: 99%

Inertial core-mantle coupling and libration of Mercury

Rambaux

Hoolst²,

Déhant³

et al. 2007

A&A

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The internal structure of Mercury is the most puzzling among the terrestrial planets. The space missions MESSENGER and the upcoming BepiColombo as well as ground-based radar measurements will play an important role in constraining our understanding of the structure, formation, and evolution of Mercury. The development of a complete theory of the coupled spin-orbit motion of Mercury within the Solar System is an essential complement to observational data and will improve significantly our knowledge of the planet. Prior work concerning the effect of core-mantle couplings on the rotation of Mercury has assumed that the obliquity of Mercury is equal to zero and that its orbit is Keplerian. This work deals with the Hermean core-mantle interactions in a realistic model of the orbital and rotational motions of Mercury. To this aim, we have used the SONYR model of the Solar System including Mercury's spin-orbit motion (SONYR is the acronym of Spin-Orbit N-bodY Relativistic model). We studied the dynamical behavior of the rotational motion of Mercury considered as a solid body including either a solid core or a liquid core. The liquid core and the mantle are assumed to be coupled through an inertial torque on the ellipsoidal core-mantle boundary. We determined Mercury's rotation for a large set of interior structure models of Mercury to be able to identify and to clarify the impact of the core motion on the librations. In this paper, we present a comparative study of the librations resulting from different models of the internal structure. The geophysical models have been calculated for a three-layer planet composed of a solid mantle, a liquid outer core, and a solid inner core. We find that (i) the influence of inertial coupling is of the order of a milliarcsecond for a core ellipticity of the order of 10 −4 ; (ii) the amplitude of the 88-day libration depends essentially on the radius of the core or, equivalently, on the concentration of sulfur in the core; and (iii) the range of amplitude values is 19 arcsec, indicating the possibility to discriminate between models of internal structure by using accurate libration measurements.

show abstract

“…They considered a body composed of a homogeneous, incompressible, and non-viscous core enclosed by solid homogeneous spherical layers. Some Mercury models, however, can lead to an inner core composed of one layer of iron and another of iron sulfide (e.g., Van Hoolst & Jacobs 2003) or other more general kinds of stratification (e.g., Hauck et al 2013, Rivoldini & Van Hoolst 2013. Hence, a natural step in the development of analytical models of a Mercury Slichter mode was to consider differentiated solid constituents.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revisiting the Slichter mode of Mercury in the context of differentiated models

Escapa

Fukushima

2015

A&A

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We revisit the Slichter mode of a set of differentiated Mercury models that were considered previously. We apply a different and independent formalism, based on variational principles of mechanics, to analytically model the internal translations of a body with a global internal perfect fluid layer limited by two differentiated rigid solid constituents that have a spherical symmetric mass distribution. The Slichter mode is specified by providing the time evolution of the barycenters of the solid constituents, the amplitude ratio of the mantle to the inner core, and the period of the oscillatory motion. All these parameters only depend on the mass of the body, the mass of the inner core, the density of the fluid, and the mean density of the inner core. For previously developed Mercury models we find, in contrast to other results, that there are no discontinuities in the Slichter period when passing from undifferentiated to differentiated inner cores. Hence, in a general situation, a potential detection of the Slichter mode cannot determine the differentiation of the inner core. We also find that the BepiColombo mission may be able to detect the Slichter mode caused by an impactor meteroid with a mass of about 10 12 kg in the most favorable of circumstances. This shows that a measurable excitation of the mode by this mechanism is even more unlikely than was previously established, where a mass about 10 10 kg was found.

show abstract

Mercury's tides and interior structure

Cited by 56 publications

References 33 publications

Period of the Slichter mode of Mercury and its possible observation

Period of the Slichter mode of Mercury and its possible observation

Inertial core-mantle coupling and libration of Mercury

Revisiting the Slichter mode of Mercury in the context of differentiated models

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About