Prospects for Mercury Observations with the BepiColombo Laser Altimeter (BELA): Implications for Estimating Surface Roughness from Laser Altimetry
The episode discusses a paper on using BepiColombo's Laser Altimeter (BELA) to estimate surface roughness on Mercury. Researchers found that previous models were too simple because they assumed a perfect laser pulse shape. They propose using the difference between actual and flat-surface pulses to measure roughness, predicting range errors below one point five meters at certain altitudes.