Entries in the Category "libration"
My First Post
In class we've talked about geology's place in the heirarchy of sciences. Steve has also presented his research on constraints on the composition and shape of Mercury's core. The MESSENGER will be sending back data regarding new measurements, further allowing scientists to figure out the anatomy of Mercury.
I had the following questions:
1. In what way does Mercury's orbit oscillate in 88 day cycles?
2. "Further, Fe-S alloys are better
characterized at the relevant pressures and temperatures [Fei
et al., 1997; Hillgren et al., 2000] for Mercury’s interior
than other candidate compounds (e.g., Fe-C, Fe-Si)."
Why isn't Fe-Ni a possibility? If I remember correctly, Ni is the second
most abundant element in the Earth's core and Sulfur is significantly
less so.
3. It seems to me that this paper assumes that the core must account for atleast the lion's share of the high bulk density, as opposed to the
crust. Why can't the crust be of an abnormally dense composition? What
do we know about the crust of Mercury?
I looked into orbital libration a little bit and I found this, which I thought was interesting. It's an animation of the moon's librations.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3ryt9fBOBE