{"id":42098,"date":"2026-07-14T19:54:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T17:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/?p=42098"},"modified":"2026-07-14T19:54:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T17:54:21","slug":"interrogating-16-psyches-interior-with-rotational-dynamics-and-gravity-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/?p=42098","title":{"rendered":"Interrogating 16 Psyche\u2019s Interior with Rotational Dynamics and Gravity Field<span class=\"badge-status\" style=\"background:#787878\">OPEN ACCESS<\/span>&nbsp;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Anton I. Ermakov<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Planetary Science Journal, Volume 7, Number 7, published: 14 July 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/iopscience.iop.org\/article\/10.3847\/PSJ\/ae7f03\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>LINK (OPEN ACCESS)<\/strong><\/a><br><a href=\"https:\/\/iopscience.iop.org\/article\/10.3847\/PSJ\/ae7f03\/pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>PDF (OPEN ACCESS)<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"justify-text\">&#8220;16 Psyche is an M-type main belt asteroid. 16 Psyche\u2019s high density and radar-bright surface indicate a large iron content. However, the degree of Psyche\u2019s internal differentiation is not known. NASA\u2019s Psyche mission is going to orbit 16 Psyche, collecting geophysical data. Spacecraft Doppler tracking will be used to measure 16 Psyche\u2019s gravity field. Gravitational torque from the Sun and planets causes precessional and nutational motion of 16 Psyche\u2019s spin axis. The measurements of 16 Psyche\u2019s precession and nutation can constrain its dynamic flattening, thus providing the needed constraint to solve for its full inertia tensor. For strongly nonhydrostatic bodies, such as 16 Psyche, moments of inertia provide nondegenerate information compared to gravity coefficients, thus informing the differentiation state. In this paper, we evaluate Psyche\u2019s rotational dynamics and conclude that expected amplitudes of precession and nutation could be large enough to be plausibly detected by the Psyche mission\u2019s observational campaign.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anton I. Ermakov The Planetary Science Journal, Volume 7, Number 7, published: 14 July 2026 LINK (OPEN ACCESS)PDF (OPEN ACCESS) &#8220;16 Psyche is an M-type main belt asteroid. 16 Psyche\u2019s high density and radar-bright surface&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77,79,2495,5891,181],"tags":[2496,1854,6090,2240,1019,2298,270],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42098"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42098"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42099,"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42098\/revisions\/42099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}