Gravity Field, Topography, and Interior Structure of Amalthea

A close Galileo flyby of Jupiter's inner moon Amalthea (JV) occurred on 5 November 2002. The final aimpoint was selected by the Galileo Radio Science Team on 5 July 2002. The closest approach distance for the selected aimpoint was 221 km from the center of mass, the latitude was - 45.23 Deg and the west longitude was 266.41 Deg (IAU/IAG/COSPAR cartographic coordinate system). In order to achieve an acceptable impact probability (0.15%), and yet fly close to Amalthea, the trajectory was selected from a class of trajectories running parallel to Amalthea's long axis. The Deep Space Network (DSN) had the capability to generate continuous coherent radio Doppler data during the flyby. Such data can be inverted to obtain information on Amalthea's gravity field. Amalthea is irregular and neither a triaxial ellipsoid nor an equilibrium body. It has a volume of about 2.4 x 10⁶ km³, and its best-fit ellipsoid has dimensions 131x73x67 km. Its mass can be determined from the 2002 flyby, and in combination with the volume, a density can be obtained accurate to about 5%, where the error is dominated by the volume uncertainty. Similarly, gravity coefficients (C_nm S_nm) can be detected up to fourth degree and order, and the second degree field (quadrupole) can be measured. Topography data are available from Voyager imaging and from images taken with Galileo's solid state imaging system at various times between February and June 1997. By combining the gravity and topography data, new information can be obtained on Amalthea's interior. For example if the gravity coefficients agree with those calculated from the topography, assuming constant density, we can conclude that Amalthea is homogeneous. On the other hand, if the gravity coefficients are smaller than predicted from topography, we can conclude that there is a concentration of mass toward Amalthea's center. We are presenting preliminary pre-publication results at the Fall meeting. This work was sponsored by the Galileo Project and was performed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with NASA. G.S., P.C.T., and W.B.M. acknowledge support by grants from NASA under the Planetary Geology and Geophysics program. G.W. is a visiting PhD student at JPL, May 2002 - May 2003, and acknowledges support from the Austrian Ministry for Technology and a Zonta - Amelia Earhart fellowship.