During an extended research visit at the Institute of Geodesy (GIS) in 2018, Dr. Yin developed a revolutionary approach to model the gravitational field of celestial bodies of complex shape. By reformulating the gravitational field in terms of a potential flow, a concept from fluid dynamics, the gravitational vector field is mapped onto a potential-flow vector field. In this way, the complex boundary value problem was made amenable to off-the-shelf CFD techniques. The methodology was successfully demonstrated on the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, geometrically a notoriously difficult body, known for its irregula double-lobed shape.
Journal of Geodesy (2021) 95:68 / Zhi Yin / Figure 12 (CC BY 4.0)