Publication Date:
1996-11-29
Description:
During the Clementine 1 mission, a bistatic radar experiment measured the magnitude and polarization of the radar echo versus bistatic angle, beta, for selected lunar areas. Observations of the lunar south pole yield a same-sense polarization enhancement around beta = 0. Analysis shows that the observed enhancement is localized to the permanently shadowed regions of the lunar south pole. Radar observations of periodically solar-illuminated lunar surfaces, including the north pole, yielded no such enhancement. A probable explanation for these differences is the presence of low-loss volume scatterers, such as water ice, in the permanently shadowed region at the south pole.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Nozette, S -- Lichtenberg, C L -- Spudis, P -- Bonner, R -- Ort, W -- Malaret, E -- Robinson, M -- Shoemaker, E M -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 1996 Nov 29;274(5292):1495-8.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉U.S. Air Force Phillips Laboratory, Space Experiments Directorate, 711 North Fayette Street, Alexandria, VA 22314, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8929403" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Extraterrestrial Environment
;
*Ice
;
*Moon
;
Radar
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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