The Geophysics of the Moon: Clementine Topography and Gravity

We are investigating the internal structure and evolution of the Moon. Our approach includes the analysis of gravity and laser altimetry data from the Clementine mission to characterize the Moon in a geophysical sense on the global and regional scales. We are also analyzing these data sets and using them as constraints on three-dimensional convection models that we are developing to address the Moon's early thermal evolution.

Clementine geophysical data products produced by our group at MIT and the Goddard Space Flight Center are available via anonymous ftp from the Geophysics Node of NASA's Planetary Data System (PDS) at Washington University, St. Louis.

These datasets, as well as geophysical analyses of the Moon based on them, are described in:

Zuber, M.T., D.E. Smith, F.G. Lemoine, and G.A. Neumann: Shape and Internal Structure of the Moon from the Clementine Mission, Science, 266, 1839-1843, 1994.

 Lemoine, F.G., D.E. Smith, M.T. Zuber, D.D. Rowlands, and G.A. Neumann, Results from the Clementine lunar geodesy investigation, Astrodynamics, 90, 201-213, 1995.

Neumann, G.A., M.T. Zuber, D.E. Smith, and F.G. Lemoine, The lunar crust: Global structure and signature of major basins, J. Geophys. Res., 101, 16,841-16,863, 1996.

Smith, D.E., M.T. Zuber, G.A. Neumann, and F.G. Lemoine, Topography of the Moon from the Clementine LIDAR, J. Geophys. Res., 102, 1591-1611, 1997.

Lemoine, F.G., D.E. Smith, M.T. Zuber, G.A. Neumann and D.D. Rowlands, A 70th degree lunar gravity model (GLGM-2) from Clementine and other tracking data, J. Geophys. Res., 102, 16,339-16,359, 1997.

Zuber, M.T., and D.E. Smith, Topography of the lunar south polar region: Implications for the size and location of permanently shaded regions, Geophys. Res. Lett., 24, 2183-2186, 1997.

 Williams. K.K., and M.T. Zuber, Measurement and analysis of major lunar basins from Clementine altimetry, Icarus, 131, 107-122, 1998.

 

-->Images contained at this site were generated using the GMT software of Pal Wessel and Walter Smith, Eos Trans. Am. Geophys. Union 72, 441, 445-446, 1991. These images include:
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address comments to:

Maria Zuber (zuber@tharsis.gsfc.nasa.gov)