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Planetary Geodesy and Geophysics of Asteroid: Data and Modeling

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A special issue of Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292). This special issue belongs to the section "Engineering Remote Sensing".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 December 2023) | Viewed by 3707

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Jianguo Yan

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State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, China
Interests: planetary spacecraft precise orbit determination; gravity field modeling; interior structure

Prof. Antonio Genova

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Guest Editor

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Sapienza University of Rome, 00184 Rome, Italy
Interests: precise orbit determination; gravity field modeling; geophysics
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Prof. Dr. Jean-Pierre Barriot

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Geodesy Observatory of Tahiti, University of French Polynesia, BP 6570, Faa’a, Tahiti 98702, French Polynesia
Interests: planetary exploration; planetary geodesy; radio science
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Planetary geodesy and geophysics consist of modeling and measuring the shape and gravity field of Solar System-bound bodies (such as comets and asteroids), the variations in their rotation and orientation, and their indications on interior structures. Planetary missions devoted to geodesy and geophysical investigations have acquired a massive amount of data to enhance our knowledge of the formation and evolution of comets and asteroids.

Past and present missions, such as ROSETTA, Hayabusa-II, and OSIRIS-REx, and planned missions, such as HERA, Psyche, and MMX as well as China’s first asteroid mission, will significantly contribute to the exploration of these celestial bodies. It is expected that this will cause a rapid increase in the available data, and defining the required modeling to process these data and to provide geophysical measurements for a better understanding of the nature of comets and asteroids will be a significant challenge.

The aim of the Special Issue will be to highlight the latest advances, problems, and challenges and to present the latest research results in the field of the geodesy and geophysics of small bodies. It will focus on all aspects of topography, gravity field, rotation modeling, and internal structure as well as thermal evolution. Any research articles related to such topics is encouraged, and review articles are welcome in particular.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

Precise asteroid topography modeling;
Precise spacecraft orbit determination and autonomous navigation for the exploration of small bodies;
Potential improvements in asteroid gravity field modeling;
Gravity field modeling of comets and asteroids with an irregular shape;
Potential improvements in the rotation of small bodies with current and future exploration missions;
The interiror structure of asteroids with current geodetic and geophysical constraints;
The thermal evolution of asteroids with the constraints imposed by recent gravity and topography data.

Prof. Dr. Jianguo Yan
Prof. Antonio Genova
Prof. Dr. Jean-Pierre Barriot
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

asteroid
shape modeling
rotation dynamics
precise orbit determination
gravity field modeling
interior layer structure
thermal structure

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

21 pages, 34432 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Optimizing Image Compression Ratio for Generating Highly Accurate Local Digital Terrain Models: Experimental Study for Martian Moons eXploration Mission

by Yuta Shimizu, Hideaki Miyamoto and Shingo Kameda

Remote Sens. 2023, 15(23), 5500; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs15235500 - 25 Nov 2023

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Abstract

Recent technological advances have significantly increased the data volume obtained from deep space exploration missions, making the downlink rate a primary limiting factor. Particularly, JAXA’s Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission encounters this problem when identifying safe and scientifically valuable landing sites on Phobos using high-resolution images. A strategic approach in which we effectively reduce image data volumes without compromising essential scientific information is thus required. In this work, we investigate the influence of image data compression, especially as it concerns the accuracy of generating the local Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) that will be used to determine MMX’s landing sites. We obtain simulated images of Phobos that are compressed using the algorithm with integer/float-point discrete wavelet transform (DWT) defined by the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS), which are candidate algorithms for the MMX mission. Accordingly, we show that, if the compression ratio is 70% or lower, the effect of image compression remains constrained, and local DTMs can be generated within altitude errors of 40 cm on the surface of Phobos, which is ideal for selecting safe landing spots. We conclude that the compression ratio can be increased as high as 70%, and such compression enables us to facilitate critical phases in the MMX mission even with the limited downlink rate. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Planetary Geodesy and Geophysics of Asteroid: Data and Modeling)

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11 pages, 1305 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Mean Moment of Inertia for Irregularly Shaped Phobos and Its Application to the Constraint for the Two-Layer Interior Structure for the Martian Moon

by Zhen Zhong, Qilin Wen, Jianguo Yan and Lijun Pang

Remote Sens. 2023, 15(12), 3162; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs15123162 - 17 Jun 2023

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Abstract

The interior structure of Phobos has been the subject of debate in recent years, with the moment of inertia being a determining factor. To study this structure, we modeled Phobos with a two-layer structure and calculated its mean density and moment of inertia using updated gravity coefficients of degree-2 and forced libration amplitudes. By minimizing the misfit between modeled and derived moment of inertia, and observed and modeled mean density, we determined the frequency distribution for estimated parameters, including the core radius r_c, core density ρ_c, and density ρ_m of the outer layer. Our results indicate that the optimized core radius is around 8.2 km for our models, along with a core density compromise of approximately 2500 kg·m⁻³, and an outer layer density of around 1400 kg·m⁻³. These values have remarkable sensitivity to the misfit function, implying a higher density likely inside Phobos compared to the outer layer. Given that the large core density was associated with ice content, it suggested that the fractional ice content in the outer layer is approximately 11% with a rock density of 2200 kg·m⁻³, while the content in the core is lower at 2.4% with a rock density of 3000 kg·m⁻³. The methodology introduced in this study can be further used to study the interior structure of irregularly shaped asteroids. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Planetary Geodesy and Geophysics of Asteroid: Data and Modeling)

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16 pages, 6857 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Likely Thermal Evolution of the Irregularly Shaped S-Type Astraea Asteroid

by Zhen Zhong, Jianguo Yan, Shiguo Chen, Lu Liu, Marco Fenucci and Qilin Wen

Remote Sens. 2022, 14(24), 6320; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14246320 - 13 Dec 2022

Viewed by 1297

Abstract

The thermal evolution of asteroids provides information on the thermal processes of the protoplanetary disk. Since irregular bodies have a large surface subject to fast heat loss, we used the finite element method (FEM) to explore the likely thermal pathways of one of these bodies. To test our FEM approach, we compared the FEM to another algorithm, the finite difference method (FDM). The results show that the two methods calculated a similar temperature magnitude at the same evolutionary time, especially at the stage when the models had temperatures around 800 K. Furthermore, this investigation revealed a slight difference between the methods that commences with a declining temperature, particularly around the center of the model. The difference is associated with the tiny thickness of the boundary used in the FDM, whereas the FEM does not consider the thickness of the boundary due to its self-adapting grid. Using the shape data provided by DAMIT, we further explored the likely thermal evolution pathway of the S-type asteroid Astraea by considering the radionuclide ²⁶Al. Since we only focused on the thermal pathways of conduction, we considered that the accretion lasts 2.5 Ma (1 Ma = 1,000,000 years) by assuming that Astraea has not experienced iron melting. The results show a high interior temperature area with a shape similar to the shape of Astraea, indicating the influence of the irregular shape on thermal evolution. The interior of Astraea achieved the highest temperature after 4.925 Ma from the accretion of planetesimals. After that time of high temperature, Astraea gradually cooled and existed more than 50 Ma before its heat balanced approximately to its external space. We did not find signs of apparent fast cooling along the shortest z-axis as in previous studies, which could be due to the hidden differences in the distances along the axes. The methodology developed in this paper performs effectively and can be applied to study the thermal pathways of other asteroids with irregular shapes. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Planetary Geodesy and Geophysics of Asteroid: Data and Modeling)

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