| Univ. NICE Prof. A. Fienga | The BEPI-COLOMBO Mission (S3, elective, 6 ECTS) – offered through A.Y. 2023/2024 |
| Learning Outcomes: | The Bepi-Colombo mission is an ESA large mission of exploration of Mercury. Its main goal is the characterization of the internal structure of the closest to the sun planets together with the tests of general relativity. In this lecture, we will firstly see how the solar system can be a very efficient tool for testing general relativity. We will then focus on Mercury and see how the Bepi-Colombo mission can contribute in testing alternative theories of gravity |
| Knowledge and Understanding: | The students will perform numerical simulations based on a simplified version of the INPOP code for coding different theories of gravity into the equations of motion of the planets and estimating their impact on the planetary motions.After getting familiar with the code in C language, the students will implement different theories of gravity such as MOND or pressure on modellings. They will estimate the impact of such models on the orbits of the planets and more specifically on the earth-planet distances. In a second step, by comparisons with themission specifications, they will see what models could be detected by the radio science experiments and which one would not be. |
| Applying Knowledge and Understanding: | See above |
| Prerequisites | none |
| Program | I) Introduction II) The Solar system as a laboratory for testing gravity |
| Description of how the course is conducted | Fundamental lectures and exercises |
| Description of the didactic methods | Powerpoints |
| Description of the evaluation methods | Exercices and oral exam |
| Adopted Textbooks | |
| Recommended readings | Bepi-Colombo mission overview http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/BepiColombo_overview2 Testing GR with the Bepi-Colombo mission http://inspirehep.net/record/601561/citations?ln=en |
