Abstract
A polyhedron can model irregularly shaped objects such as asteroids, comet nuclei, and small planetary satellites. With minor effort, such a model can incorporate important surface features such as large craters. Here we develop closed-form expressions for the exterior gravitational potential and acceleration components due to a constant-density polyhedron. An equipotential surface of Phobos is illustrated.
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Werner, R.A. The gravitational potential of a homogeneous polyhedron or don't cut corners. Celestial Mech Dyn Astr 59, 253–278 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00692875
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00692875