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High‐resolution lunar gravity fields from the GRAIL Primary and Extended Missions
Author(s) -
Konopliv Alex S.,
Park Ryan S.,
Yuan DahNing,
Asmar Sami W.,
Watkins Michael M.,
Williams James G.,
Fahnestock Eugene,
Kruizinga Gerhard,
Paik Meegyeong,
Strekalov Dmitry,
Harvey Nate,
Smith David E.,
Zuber Maria T.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/2013gl059066
Subject(s) - gravitational field , bouguer anomaly , geodesy , altitude (triangle) , geology , gravimetry , spacecraft , physics , geophysics , gravity anomaly , astronomy , geometry , optics , amplitude , mathematics , interferometry
The resolution and accuracy of the lunar spherical harmonic gravity field have been dramatically improved as a result of the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission. From the Primary Mission, previous harmonic gravity fields resulted in an average n = 420 surface resolution and a Bouguer spectrum to n = 330. The GRAIL Extended Mission improves the resolution due to a lower average 23 km altitude orbit. As a result, new harmonic degree 900 gravity fields (GL0900C and GL0900D) show nearly a factor of 2 improvement with an average surface resolution n = 870 and the Bouguer spectrum extended to n = 550. Since the minimum spacecraft altitude varies spatially between 3 km and 23 km, the surface resolution is variable from near n = 680 for the central farside to near n = 900 for the polar regions. These gravity fields with 0.8 million parameters are by far the highest‐degree fields of any planet ever estimated with a fully dynamic least squares technique using spacecraft tracking data.