Venera-9 and Venera-10: IR-spectrophotometry of cloud layer on board the orbiters and descenders
Abstract
Measurements of scattered solar radiation inside the Venus cloud layer at altitudes between 64 and 34 km above the planetary surface were carried out by means of narrow-band photometers (three bands of about 0.8 mkm) installed onboard the Venera-9 and Venera-10 descenders. A series of the measurements of the intensity of solar radiation reflected from the cloud layer at wave lengths from 1.6 to 2.8 mkm were made using IR-spectrophotometers installed onboard the orbiters. The H2O content (0.001 at altitudes from 34 to 40 km) was estimated based on the analysis of the measurements taken from the descenders. The Venus cloud layer model, in adequate agreement with both these types of the observations, is characterized by the following main features: conservative scattering and optical thickness of about 25 in the 0.5 to 1.8 mkm wavelength range, average volume coefficient of scattering of about 0.00001/cm.
- Publication:
-
NASA STI/Recon Technical Report N
- Pub Date:
- 1976
- Bibcode:
- 1976STIN...7713948G
- Keywords:
-
- Satellite Observation;
- Venera Satellites;
- Venus Clouds;
- Atmospheric Attenuation;
- Atmospheric Scattering;
- Infrared Spectrophotometers;
- Infrared Spectroscopy;
- Optical Thickness;
- Scattering Coefficients;
- Solar Radiation;
- Venus Atmosphere;
- Vertical Distribution;
- Lunar and Planetary Exploration