Researchers find that Mars has a Chandler wobble

A joint team of researchers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the California Institute of Technology and the Royal Observatory of Belgium, found evidence that Mars has a Chandler pendulum. In their paper published in the journal Geophysical research letters, the group describes their study of decades of data from Mars probes and what it showed them.

About a century ago, astronomer Seth Carlo Chandler discovered that imperfectly round objects (like planets) sometimes rotate from their axis from time to time. The phenomenon became known as the Chandler pendulum, and has been documented for planet Earth, deviating from its axis distances up to 30 feet in a pattern that repeats approximately every 433 days. Scientists have suggested that other planets may have a Chandler wobble, but until now it has never been observed, as it requires measurement on the planet for many years. In this new effort, the researchers obtain the right kind of data from space probes orbiting Mars over many years: The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey. The vessel’s data spans 18 years and is considered accurate enough to measure any existing Chandler wobble.

The data contained gravitational effects on the spacecraft, which revealed that Mars does have a Chandler wobble, although much less pronounced than Earth’s – the planet moves over a period of 200 days just four inches from its axis.

One of the interesting aspects of the Chandler pendulum is that it is supposed to stop after a period of time. Calculations have shown that the earth has wavered much longer than it should, suggesting that the pendulum is affected by factors that scientists do not yet understand. Data from the space probes indicate that Mars also wavered longer than it should have. The researchers could not say why, but suggested that it should be simpler than understanding the Earth’s pendulum, because Mars’ geography, atmosphere and its inner structure are much simpler than the Earth’s.

© 2021 Science X Network