Venus Highland Anomalous Reflectivity

Details Venus Highland Anomalous Reflectivity Venus Highland Anomalous Reflectivity

Sep 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009dps....41.6304s&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #41, #63.04

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Scientific paper

Maxwell Montes was one of several unusually bright areas identified from early Venus radar backscatter observations. Pioneer Venus' orbiting radar associated low emissivity with the bright areas and established a correlation between reflectivity and altitude. Magellan, using an oblique bistatic geometry, showed that the bright surface dielectric constant was not only large but also imaginary -- i.e., the material was conducting, at least near Cleopatra Patera (Pettengill et al., Science, 272, 1996). Venus Express (VEX) repeated Magellan's bistatic observations over Maxwell, using the more conventional circular polarization carried by most spacecraft. Although VEX signal-to-noise ratio was lower than Magellan's, echoes were sufficiently strong to verify the Magellan conclusions near Cleopatra (see J. Geophys. Res., 114, E00B41, doi:10.1029/2008JE003156). Only about 40% of the surface at Cleopatra scatters specularly, opening the Fresnel (specular) interpretation model to question. Elsewhere in Maxwell, the specular percentage may be even lower. Nonetheless, the echo polarization is reversed throughout Maxwell, a result that is consistent with large dielectric constants and difficult to explain without resorting qualitatively (if not quantitatively) to specular models. VEX was scheduled to explore other high altitude regions when its S-Band (13-cm wavelength) radio system failed in late 2006, so further probing of high altitude targets awaits arrival of a new spacecraft.

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