Sander Goossens

Sander Goossens
Utrecht University | UU · Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning

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186
Publications
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Publications

Publications (186)
Article
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The outer solar system beyond Saturn remains unexplored by dedicated orbital missions. With a launch window opening in 2029, the Uranus Orbiter and Probe (UOP) mission has been prioritized as a NASA Flagship mission for the next decade (2023–2032) to comprehensively study Uranus and its major moons—Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon. We d...
Article
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Plain Language Summary Just like the Moon raises tides on the Earth, the Earth (and Sun) raise tides on the Moon. This introduces periodic changes in the Moon's shape and gravity, as well as a time‐lag in its response associated with energy dissipation. Because of the behavior of the Moon's interior, the response to these tides depends on the forci...
Article
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The Cassini mission has provided measurements of the gravity of several moons of Saturn as well as an estimate of the tidal response, which is expressed as the degree 2 Love number k2 of its largest moon, Titan. The first estimates of Titan’s Love number were larger than pre-Cassini expectations. Interior modelling suggested it may be explained wit...
Article
Full-text available
The lunar gravity field is used to estimate and constrain the depth of mass anomalies under 19 major lunar impact basins. We use radial gravitational spectra, consisting of accelerations computed either per spherical harmonic degree or cumulatively, at surface locations to obtain the distribution of the gravity signal with spherical harmonic degree...
Article
Relationships between the degree of a spherical harmonic model of the gravitational field of a body and the depth of a source expressed as a density contrast can be used to study the structure of features. Here, we show that the gravitational acceleration per spherical harmonic degree of a constant density source has an extremum that depends on the...
Article
A new solution of Mercury's gravity field to degree and order 160, named HgM009, is retrieved through a reprocessing of MESSENGER radio science measurements. By combining our latest gravity field with topography data, localized spectral admittance analyses are carried out to investigate Mercury's crustal and lithospheric properties across the north...
Article
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Changes in mass distribution affect the gravitational figure and reorient a planetary body’s surface with respect to its rotational axis. The mass anomalies in the present-day lunar gravity field can reveal how the figure and pole position have evolved over the Moon’s history. By examining sequentially each individual crater and basin, working back...
Chapter
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Bodily tides provide key information on the interior structure, evolution, and origin of the planetary bodies. Our Solar system harbors a very diverse population of planetary bodies, including those composed of rock, ice, gas, or a mixture of all. While a rich arsenal of geophysical methods has been developed over several years to infer knowledge a...
Article
Full-text available
The gravity fields of celestial bodies that possess an atmosphere are periodically perturbed by the redistribution of fluid mass associated with atmospheric dynamics. A component of this perturbation is due to the gravitational response of the body to the deformation of its surface induced by the atmospheric pressure loading. The magnitude of this...
Article
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We have analyzed the entire set of radiometric tracking data from the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) mission. This analysis employed a method where standard Doppler tracking data were transformed into line-of-sight accelerations. These accelerations have greater sensitivity to small-scale features than sta...
Preprint
Full-text available
Solid body tides provide key information on the interior structure, evolution, and origin of the planetary bodies. Our Solar system harbours a very diverse population of planetary bodies, including those composed of rock, ice, gas, or a mixture of all. While a rich arsenal of geophysical methods has been developed over several years to infer knowle...
Article
Full-text available
Mercury holds valuable clues to the distribution of elements at the birth of the solar system and how planets form and evolve in close proximity to their host stars. This Mercury Lander mission concept returns in situ measurements that address fundamental science questions raised by the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging...
Article
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Recent estimates of Mercury’s rotational state yield different obliquity values, resulting in normalized polar moment of inertia values of either 0.333 or 0.346. In addition, recent measurements of Mercury’s tidal response, as expressed by its Love number k 2 , are higher than previously reported. These different measurements have implications for...
Article
Geodetic and geophysical investigations of the Galilean moon Callisto address fundamental questions regarding the formation and evolution of the Jovian system. Callisto's evolution and internal structure appear to significantly differ from the other Jovian satellites. Similarly-sized Ganymede is a highly evolved ice-rock moon with a differentiated...
Article
Bodily tides provide key information on the interior structure, evolution, and origin of the planetary bodies. Our Solar system harbors a very diverse population of planetary bodies, including those composed of rock, ice, gas, or a mixture of all. While a rich arsenal of geophysical methods has been developed over years to infer knowledge about the...
Article
Full-text available
The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission collected a sample from the rubble-pile asteroid (101955) Bennu for return to Earth. For the successful Touch And Go sample acquisition maneuver, the shape and mass of the asteroid needed to be known precisely. Here we use a combinatio...
Preprint
Full-text available
As an end-member of terrestrial planet formation, Mercury holds unique clues about the original distribution of elements in the earliest stages of solar system development and how planets and exoplanets form and evolve in close proximity to their host stars. This Mercury Lander mission concept enables in situ surface measurements that address sever...
Article
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Planetary spatial data returned by spacecraft, including images and higher-order products such as mosaics, controlled basemaps, and digital elevation models (DEMs), are of critical importance to NASA, its commercial partners and other space agencies. Planetary spatial data are an essential component of basic scientific research and sustained planet...
Preprint
Full-text available
Planetary spatial data returned by spacecraft, including images and higher-order products such as mosaics, controlled basemaps, and digital elevation models (DEMs), are of critical importance to NASA, its commercial partners and other space agencies. Planetary spatial data are an essential component of basic scientific research and sustained planet...
Article
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We present our latest high‐resolution lunar gravity field model of degree and order 1200 in spherical harmonics using Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) data. In addition to a model with the standard spectral Kaula regularization constraint, we determine models by applying a constraint based on topography called rank‐minus‐one (RM1)....
Article
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Kaguya spacecraft carried a suite of instruments to map the Moon and its environment globally. During its extended mission, the average altitude was 50 km or lower, and Kaguya science products using these data hence have an increased spatial resolution. However, the geodetic position quality of these...
Article
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Geodetic analysis of radio tracking measurements of the MESSENGER spacecraft while in orbit about Mercury has yielded new estimates for the planet's gravity field, tidal Love number, and pole coordinates. The derived right ascension (α = 281.0082° ± 0.0009°; all uncertainties are 3 standard deviations) and declination (δ =61.4164° ± 0.0003°) of the...
Article
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The NASA MESSENGER mission explored the innermost planet of the solar system and obtained a rich data set of range measurements for the determination of Mercury's ephemeris. Here we use these precise data collected over 7 years to estimate parameters related to general relativity and the evolution of the Sun. These results confirm the validity of t...
Article
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has been orbiting the Moon since 2009, obtaining unique and foundational datasets important to understanding the evolution of the Moon and the Solar System. The high-resolution data acquired by LRO benefit from precise orbit determination (OD), limiting the need for geolocation and co-registration tasks. The i...
Article
Knowledge of the average density of the crust of a planet is important in determining its interior structure. The combination of high-resolution gravity and topography data has yielded a low density for the Moon's crust, yet for other terrestrial planets the resolution of the gravity field models has hampered reasonable estimates. By using well-cho...
Article
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Data from the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission have revealed that ∼98% of the power of the gravity signal of the Moon at high spherical harmonic degrees correlates with the topography. The remaining 2% of the signal, which cannot be explained by topography, contains information about density variations within the crust. Thes...
Article
In June 2009 the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft was launched to the Moon. The payload consists of 7 science instruments selected to characterize sites for future robotic and human missions. Among them, the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) was designed to obtain altimetry, surface roughness, and reflectance measurements. The prima...
Article
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On the origin of Orientale basin Orientale basin is a major impact crater on the Moon, which is hard to see from Earth because it is right on the western edge of the lunar nearside. Relatively undisturbed by later events, Orientale serves as a prototype for understanding large impact craters throughout the solar system. Zuber et al. used the Gravit...
Article
We revisit the constraints on the deep lunar interior with a possible low-viscosity zone at the core-mantle boundary obtained from our previous forward modeling of the tidal response of the Moon, by comparing a numerical model with several tidal parameters (i.e., k2, k3, h2, and Q) that have been improved or are newly determined by recent geodetic...
Article
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We present a spherical harmonic solution of the static gravity field of Mars to degree and order 120, GMM-3, that has been calculated using the Deep Space Network (DSN) tracking data of the NASA Mars missions, Mars Global Surveyor (MGS), Mars Odyssey (ODY), and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). We have also jointly determined spherical harmoni...
Article
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Observations from the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission indicate a marked change in the gravitational signature of lunar impact structures at the morphological transition, with increasing diameter, from complex craters to peak-ring basins. At crater diameters larger than ~200 km, a central positive Bouguer anomaly is seen wit...
Article
We estimate the annual variability of CO2 and O partial density using approximately six years of MRO radio science data from August 2006 to January 2012, which cover three full Martian years (from the northern hemisphere summer of 28 to the northern hemisphere summer of 31). These two elements are the dominant species at the MRO periapsis altitude,...
Article
We present updated global and local gravity field models of the Moon using GRAIL data only.
Article
During its low-altitude gravity campaign, MESSENGER was tracked to altitudes down to 25 km. We present an updated, higher-resolution gravity field of Mercury.
Article
Full-text available
We have analyzed three years of radio tracking data from the MESSENGER spacecraft in orbit around Mercury and determined the gravity field, planetary orientation, and ephemeris of the innermost planet. With improvements in spatial coverage, force modeling, and data weighting, we refined an earlier global gravity field both in quality and resolution...
Article
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Tidal heating of a solid planetary body occurs by viscous dissipation, depending on its internal structure(1-5) and thermal(5-8) and orbital(6-9) states. Calculations of the response of the Moon to tidal forces have considered lunar interior structure(1-5), but have not reproduced the geodetically observed dependence of dissipation on the lunar tid...
Article
The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission has sampled lunar gravity with unprecedented accuracy and resolution. The lunar GM, the product of the gravitational constant G and the mass M, is very well determined. However, uncertainties in the mass and mean density, 3345.56 ± 0.40 kg/m3, are limited by the accuracy of G. Values of t...
Article
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We have derived a gravity field solution in spherical harmonics to degree and order 900, GRGM900C, from the tracking data of the GRAIL Primary (March 1 – May 29, 2012) and Extended Missions (August 30 – December 14, 2012). A power law constraint of of 3.6 × 10−4/ℓ2, was applied only for degree ℓ greater than 600. The model produces global correlati...
Article
Full-text available
We estimated a high-resolution local gravity field model over the south pole of the Moon using data from the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory's extended mission. Our solution consists of adjustments with respect to a global model expressed in spherical harmonics. The adjustments are expressed as gridded gravity anomalies with a resolution o...
Article
A GRAIL S21 value implies a misalignment of principal axes derived by Lunar Laser Ranging. A fluid outer core shaped by internal gravity can affect axes.
Article
A high-resolution view of the Orientale Basin and surroundings from the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL).
Article
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The static gravity field and the thermosphere of Mars from radio science data of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) mission.
Article
We present high-resolution gravity field models of the Moon using GRAIL primary and extended mission data.
Article
Lunar mare basalts are spatially unevenly distributed, and their abundances differ between the nearside and farside of the Moon. Although mare asymmetry has been attributed to thickness variations in the low-density anorthositic crust, the eruptive mechanism of lunar magma remains unknown. In this study, we investigate the relationship between mare...
Conference Paper
In March 2011, MESSENGER became the first spacecraft to orbit the planet Mercury. During the primary mission, the 12-h near-polar orbit had a periapsis latitude that was initially 60°N and evolved slowly northward, and a periapsis altitude between 200 and 500 km. In April 2012, shortly after beginning its first extended mission, the spacecraft orbi...
Article
KAGUYA(SELENE) was launched in 2007 with 14 science instruments. KAGUYA obtained the first precise global gravity field inclluding lunar farside, using 4-way Doppler tracking with a relay satellite OKINA. Multi-frequency differential VLBI observation using OKINA and OUNA improved the accuracy of gravity, through precise determination of OKINA's orb...
Article
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[1] We have analyzed Ka‒band range rate (KBRR) and Deep Space Network (DSN) data from the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) primary mission (1 March to 29 May 2012) to derive gravity models of the Moon to degree 420, 540, and 660 in spherical harmonics. For these models, GRGM420A, GRGM540A, and GRGM660PRIM, a Kaula constraint was app...
Article
In this paper we review the lunar laser ranging conducted by the laser altimeter (LALT) on board the KAGUYA lunar explorer (2007–2009). Five aspects of LALT measurements are described: (1) General operational history, (2) Laser shot and data statistics, (3) Revisions to LALT topographic data, (4) Variations in laser output energy, and (5) Peak heig...
Article
The twin Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft were launched in September 2011 on a Discovery-class NASA mission to study the gravitational field of the Moon. Extremely accurate range-rate observations between the two spacecraft at the Ka-band radio wavelength (KBRR) enable the determination of the gravity field of the Moon to...
Article
Gravity over the south pole is compared with other data, including Bouguer gravity, crustal thickness and density, surface temperatures, and neutron results.
Article
The GRAIL extended mission has provided gravity models that are being used to map the upper crust of the Moon in unprecedented detail.
Article
The inventory of lunar basins revealed by GRAIL does not indicate a more extensive history of lunar impacts as has been previously suggested.
Article
We present high-resolution lunar gravity field models derived from GRAIL primary and extended mission data.
Article
We present an updated gravity field of Mercury based on nearly two years of MESSENGER tracking data.
Article
The lunar gravity field solutions obtained with the GRAIL data alone provide significant improvements to the orbit reconstruction quality of the LRO spacecraft.
Article
GRAIL analyses provide lunar gravity field, Love number, and moment of inertia with improved uncertainties.
Article
New and improved models of the lunar gravity field to 420×420 in spherical harmonics have been derived from the analysis of the Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) intersatellite Ka-band tracking data. We discuss the measurement and force modeling applied to the analysis of the GRAIL data from the primary mission (March 1 to May 29, 20...