A planetary radio astronomy discussion of the 1.55 cm microwave emission of the earth

Using 1.55 cm observations of the earth made by the Electrically Scanned Microwave Radiometer (ESMR) experiment on Nimbus 5, the appearance of the earth from Venus is simulated. A single antenna unable to resolve the earth's disk would give a time-averaged disk temperature of 183 K. In one rotation, the disk temperature would vary from 194 K to 172 K. During the 1973 inferior conjunction, a radio telescope with 1 arc sec resolution would resolve most of the major surface features of the earth.