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On the Expansion of the External Gravitational Potential in Spheroidal Harmonics

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Modern Celestial Mechanics: From Theory to Applications
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Abstract

The expansion of the external gravitational potential of solid, irregular bodies of non-near spherical shape in terms of Spheroidal Harmonics is introduced as a way to minimize the divergence region, or Brillouin sphere, associated with the use of the more usual Spherical Harmonics. A method for the numerical evaluation of the spheroidal Stokes coefficients is proposed.

The support of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) is gratefully acknowledged.

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References

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© 2002 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Casotto, S. (2002). On the Expansion of the External Gravitational Potential in Spheroidal Harmonics. In: Celletti, A., Ferraz-Mello, S., Henrard, J. (eds) Modern Celestial Mechanics: From Theory to Applications. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2304-6_23

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2304-6_23

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-481-6078-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-017-2304-6

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