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›› 2018, Vol. 35 ›› Issue (4): 463-467.DOI: 10.7523/j.issn.2095-6134.2018.04.006

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Average elastic thickness of the Moon estimated using admittance

YANG Yongzhang1,2,3, LI Jinling1,3, MATSUMOTO Koji4, HANADA Hideo4, LI Wenxiao2,3   

  1. 1. Center for Astro-geodynamics Research, Shanghai Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200030, China;
    2. Key Lab of Lunar and Deep Space Exploration, National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100012, China;
    3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100012, China;
    4. RISE Project, National Astronomical Observatory, Oshu 0230861, Japan
  • Received:2017-04-16 Revised:2017-05-24 Online:2018-07-15

Abstract: In this paper, we consider the free-air gravity model by the GRAIL (Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory) mission and the topographic model from the LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) laser altimetry. They showed high correlation up to~500 (0.8) degree. The gravity-topography admittance (the ratio of gravity to topography in spectral domain) was low for degrees below~50 (i.e., wavelength longer than~220 km), but it increased sharply and was kept at constant value of~110 mgal/km. We employed the Gauss-Newton method and simple model to estimate the elastic thickness of the Moon at 11.76 km. This thickness value is not significantly different from those found in the present Earth in spite of the smaller dimension of the Moon. This implies that the significant portion of topographic features on the Moon was formed in the early ages of the Moon, when the heat flow was comparable to that in the present Earth.

Key words: gravity, topography, admittance, elastic thickness, Gauss-Newton method

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