2010 Annual Research Report

 

Robert Gaskell, with Nick Mastrodemos at JPL and Mark Rosiek at USGS, finished up the LASER studies mapping the polar regions of the Moon using Clementine and Lunar Orbiter data.  After correcting for very large pointing errors in the Clementine ancillary data, the results were quite good.

 

 

Figure 1.   Lunar topography north of 58° at 500 m resolution.

 

Gaskell, again working with Nick Mastrodemos on a LMMP subcontract from JPL, has been building pieces of the Moon using LRO NAC images. As part of this study, and in support of LRO, he upgraded my software to handle the LROC line scan data type.   Bashar Rizk at UA is also using this software in work supported by the LRO project.  The piece of lunar surface in figure 2 is still under construction.  The final product will have a resolution of 1.5 meters.

 

 

 

Figure 2.   Topography in lunar crater Tsiolkovsky (10 km x 25 km at 4 m resolution)

 

Gaskell's work on Mercury continues as a MESSENGER participating scientist, although no real science results will be forthcoming until we go into orbit.  By fitting over 20000 control points, he continues to refine focal lengths and the distortion model for the wide-angle camera for each of the filters.  He is also working with KinetX on plans for MESSENGER navigation during the orbit phase and am re-introducing Mariner 10 data into the mix to obtain better control points for the initial navigation solutions.

 

Gaskell has been finishing up the CDAP work, and have developed techniques to handle Hyperion’s chaotic rotation. 

 

Finally, he spent most of September in Marseille working at LAM/OAMP analyzing data from the Rosetta Lutetia flyby.  While the data were quite low-resolution, he was able to determine a shape model for the visible portion.

 

 Figure 3.   Shape model of Lutetia (right) and Rosetta image (left).

 

 

Abstracts and Conferences:

 

R. W. Gaskell, O. S. Barnouin and D. J. Scheeres (2010). The NEAR Shoemaker Landing on Eros.  Abstract 2093, XLI LPSC, Houston, TX.

 

R. W. Gaskell, N. Mastrodemos and B. Rizk (2010).  Shape and Topography of Saturn's Satellites from Imaging Data.  AGU Fall Meeting, San Francisco, CA.

 

L. Jorda, R. Gaskell, S. Besse, C. Capanna, B. Carry, G. Faury, G., Gesquière, O. Groussin, P. Gutiérrez, M. Kaasalainen, P. Lamy, W. Sabolo, S. Spjuth (2010). 21 Lutetia: 3D Shape and Physical Properties.  EPSC, Rome, Italy.

 

L. Jorda, R. Gaskell, W. Sabolo, S. Besse, C. Capanna, B. Carry, G. Faury, G. Gesquière, O. Groussin, P. Gutiérrez, M. Kaasalainen, P. Lamy,  S. Spjuth (2010). 21 Lutetia: 3D Shape and Physical Properties.  ESA Lutetia Meeitng, Granada, Spain.

 

H. U. Keller, L. Jorda, S. Spjuth, P. Lamy, O. Groussin, S. Schröder, S. Marchi, M. Küppers, R. Gaskell (2010).  Physical Properties of Asteroid 2867 Steins. COSPAR, Bremen, Germany.

 

L. Jorda, P. Lamy, S. Besse, C. Capanna, B. Carry, G. Faury, R. Gaskell, G. Gesquière, O. Groussin, P. Gutiérrez, M. Kaasalainen, W. Sabolo (2010).  Shape and Physical Properties of Asteroid 21 Lutetia from OSIRIS Images.  DPS, Pasadena, CA.