Combined retrieval of the lunar body tide and a global topographic grid from LOLA data

Abstract

We use data from the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) to retrieve the h 2 tidal Love number of the Moon and find 0.040 < h 2 < 0.044. The applied algorithm solves simultaneously for h 2 and the shape of the Moon, parametrized using cubic splines on a global rectangular grid. The result can give valuable constraints for the Moon's interior and validates the method for application to other bodies.