Mercury’s Internal Structure

Jean-Luc Margot, Steven A. Hauck II, Erwan Mazarico, Sebastiano Padovan, Stanton J. Peale
(Submitted on 6 Jun 2018)

We describe the current state of knowledge about Mercury’s interior structure. We review the available observational constraints, including mass, size, density, gravity field, spin state, composition, and tidal response. These data enable the construction of models that represent the distribution of mass inside Mercury. In particular, we infer radial profiles of the pressure, density, and gravity in the core, mantle, and crust. We also examine Mercury’s rotational dynamics and the influence of an inner core on the spin state and the determination of the moment of inertia. Finally, we discuss the wide-ranging implications of Mercury’s internal structure on its thermal evolution, surface geology, capture in a unique spin-orbit resonance, and magnetic field generation.

Comments:    36 pages, 11 figures, in press, to appear in “Mercury – The View after MESSENGER”, S. C. Solomon, B. J. Anderson, L. R. Nittler (editors), Cambridge University Press
Subjects:    Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as:    arXiv:1806.02024 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:1806.02024v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
Submission history
From: Jean-Luc Margot 
[v1] Wed, 6 Jun 2018 06:29:09 GMT (1095kb,D)
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/1806.02024