The combination of the Doppler data from the first two Juno science orbits provide an improved estimate of the gravity field of Jupiter, crucial for interior modeling of giant planets. The low-degree spherical harmonic coefficients, especially J4 and J6, are determined with accuracies better than previously published [Anderson et al., 1974; Null et al., 1975; Campbell and Synnott,1985] by a factor of 5 or more. In addition, the independent estimates of the Jovian gravity field, obtained by the orbits separately agree within uncertainties, pointing to a good stability of the solution. The degree 2 sectoral and tesseral coefficients, C2,1, S2,1, C2,2, and S2,2 were determined to be statistically zero as expected for a fluid planet in equilibrium.
Jupiter gravity field estimated from the first two Juno orbits
MILANI COMPARETTI, ANDREA;SERRA, DANIELE;TOMMEI, GIACOMO;
2017-01-01
Abstract
The combination of the Doppler data from the first two Juno science orbits provide an improved estimate of the gravity field of Jupiter, crucial for interior modeling of giant planets. The low-degree spherical harmonic coefficients, especially J4 and J6, are determined with accuracies better than previously published [Anderson et al., 1974; Null et al., 1975; Campbell and Synnott,1985] by a factor of 5 or more. In addition, the independent estimates of the Jovian gravity field, obtained by the orbits separately agree within uncertainties, pointing to a good stability of the solution. The degree 2 sectoral and tesseral coefficients, C2,1, S2,1, C2,2, and S2,2 were determined to be statistically zero as expected for a fluid planet in equilibrium.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.