Publication Date:
1996-06-14
Description:
A bistatic radar experiment in 1994, involving reception on Earth of a specularly reflected, linearly polarized 13-centimeter-wavelength signal transmitted from the Magellan spacecraft in orbit around Venus, has established that the surface materials viewed at low and intermediate altitudes on Venus have a relative dielectric permittivity of 4.0 ± 0.5. However, bistatic results for the Maxwell Montes highlands imply an electrically lossy surface with an imaginary dielectric permittivity of -i 100 ± 50, probably associated with a specific conductivity of about 13 mhos per meter. Candidates for highlands surface composition include ferroelectrics, a thin frost of elemental tellurium, or a plating of magnetite or pyrites.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Pettengill -- Ford -- Simpson -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 1996 Jun 14;272(5268):1628-31.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉G. H. Pettengill and P. G. Ford, Center for Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. R. A. Simpson, Center for Radar Astronomy, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8662473" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
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Chemistry and Pharmacology
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Computer Science
,
Medicine
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Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
