An 800-Year-Old Math Trick Could be the Key to Navigating the Moon
upstart writes:
An 800-Year-Old Math Trick Could Be The Key to Navigating The Moon:
We've been landing people on the Moonsince 1969, but as we start to explore the lunar surface, how will astronauts find their way around? We need a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) for the Moon, and an 800-year-old math trick could help.
The math trick in question is known as the Fibonacci sphere. Here, researchers from Eotvos Lorand University in Hungary used it to better estimate the Moon's rotation ellipsoid, its ever-so-slightly squished shape as it orbits Earth.
Despite what Solar System illustrations might suggest, Earth and the Moon aren't perfect spheres: the influence of gravity, rotation, and tidal fluctuations means they're more like squashed balls.
For simplicity's sake, our GNSS technology uses a rough estimate of Earth's squashed ball shape. If we're to develop a Geographic Information System (GIS) for the lunar surface, we need the same estimate for the Moon's selenoid (the equivalent of Earth's geoid, or true, irregular shape).
"Since the Moon is less flattened than the Earth, most lunar GIS applications use a spherical datum," write geophysicist Gabor Timar and student Kamilla Cziraki in their published paper.
"However, with the renaissance of lunar missions, it seems worthwhile to define an ellipsoid of revolution that better fits the selenoid."
Journal Reference:
Cziraki, Kamilla, Timar, Gabor. Parameters of the best fitting lunar ellipsoid based on GRAIL's selenoid model [open], Acta Geodaetica et Geophysica (DOI: 10.1007/s40328-023-00415-w)
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.