AN IMPROVED METHOD FOR CHARACTERIZING SMALL BODY DENSITY DISTRIBUTION

An improved method for characterizing the density distribution of small bodies is presented in this paper. It utilizes a set of interior gravity field spherical harmonics expansions to place constraints on the likely distribution of the density inhomogeneities inside a body of mass. An interior spherical harmonics expansion is defined within the interior Brillouin sphere that extends down to the surface of a body of mass allowing it to be closer and more sensitive to the regional density dispersions. Furthermore, due to the way the interior expansion is constructed, using multiple expansion fields provides added geometry advantage to the problem.