Related papers: The free precession and libration of Mercury
The rotational evolution of Mercury's mantle and its core under conservative and dissipative torques is important for understanding the planet's spin state. Dissipation results from tides and viscous, magnetic and topographic core--mantle…
The planetary perturbations on Mercury's orbit lead to long-period forced librations of Mercury's mantle. These librations have previously been studied for a planet with two layers: a mantle and a liquid core. Here, we calculate how the…
Mercury is expected to deviate from the classical Cassini state since this state is defined for a uniformly precessing rigid planet. We develop an extended Cassini state model that includes the variations (or nutations) in obliquity and…
We present a model of the Cassini state of Mercury that comprises an inner core, a fluid core and a mantle. Our model includes inertial and gravitational torques between interior regions, and viscous and electromagnetic (EM) coupling at the…
The present obliquity of Mercury is very low (less than 0.1 degree), which led previous studies to always adopt a nearly zero obliquity during the planet's past evolution. However, the initial orientation of Mercury's rotation axis is…
In determining Mercury's core structure from its rotational properties, the value of the normalized moment of inertia, $C/MR^2$, from the location of Cassini 1 is crucial. If Mercury's spin axis occupies Cassini state 1, its position…
One major objective of MESSENGER and BepiColombo spatial missions is to accurately measure Mercury's rotation and its obliquity in order to obtain constraints on internal structure of the planet. Which is the obliquity's dynamical behavior…
The 3:2 spin-orbit resonance between the rotational and orbital motions of Mercury results from a functional dependance on a tidal friction adding to a non-zero eccentricity with a permanent asymmetry in the equatorial plane of the planet.…
Mercury is entrapped in a 3:2 resonance: it rotates on its axis three times for every two revolutions it makes around the Sun. It is generally accepted that this is due to the large value of the eccentricity of its orbit. However, the…
While it is accepted that the eccentricity of Mercury (0.206) favours entrapment into the 3:2 spin-orbit resonance, open is the question how and when the capture took place. A recent work by Makarov (2012) has demonstrated that trapping…
Whenever a freely spinning body is found in a complex rotational state, this means that either the body is a recent victim of an impact or a tidal interaction, or is a fragment of a recently disrupted progenitor. Another factor (relevant…
The upcoming space missions, MESSENGER and BepiColombo with onboard instrumentation capable of measuring the rotational parameters stimulate the objective to reach an accurate theory of the rotational motion of Mercury. For obtaining the…
The rotation of Mercury is presently captured in a 3/2 spin-orbit resonance with the orbital mean motion. The capture mechanism is well understood as the result of tidal interactions with the Sun combined with planetary perturbations.…
We compute predictions of the deviation of Mercury's spin axis from an exact Cassini state caused by tidal dissipation, and viscous and electromagnetic (EM) friction at the core-mantle boundary (CMB) and inner core boundary (ICB). Viscous…
A major goal of the BepiColombo mission to Mercury is the determination of the structure and state of Mercury's interior. Here the BepiColombo rotation experiment has been simulated in order to assess the ability to attain the mission goals…
We used recently produced Solar System ephemerides, which incorporate two years of ranging observations to the MESSENGER spacecraft, to extract the secular orbital elements for Mercury and associated uncertainties. As Mercury is in a stable…
Observational constraints on Mercury's thermal evolution and magnetic field indicate that the top part of the fluid core is stably stratified. Here we compute how a stable layer affects the core flow in response to Mercury's main 88-day…
We present the results of non linear, hydrodynamic simulations, in three dimensions, of the tidal perturbation of accretion discs in binary systems where the orbit is circular and not necessarily coplanar with the disc mid-plane. The…
In Efroimsky & Makarov (2014), we derived from the first principles a formula for the tidal heating rate in a tidally perturbed homogeneous sphere. We compared it with the formulae used in the literature, and pointed out the differences.…
We analyze radio tracking data obtained during 1311 orbits of the MESSENGER spacecraft in the period March 2011 to April 2014. A least-squares minimization of the residuals between observed and computed values of two-way range and Doppler…