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Venus - Vertical structure of stratospheric hazes from Mariner 10 picturesAn 'optical barometer' technique for determining the altitudes of haze in the stratosphere of Venus is presented wherein the Rayleigh-scattering component is derived by comparing orange and UV brightness profiles for nearby Mariner 10 television-picture pairs. The derived scale height for CO2 gas is 4.2 km, corresponding to a temperature of 200 K, in good agreement with radio occultation data. The optical barometer yields a pressure of 4 mb for the level at which the slant-path optical depth at the limb is unity. This level corresponds to a distance from the center of Venus equal to 6131 km, which is accurate to within 1 km provided that there is no appreciable contribution to the brightness by Rayleigh-scattering aerosols which mimic CO2 gas. It is possible that the limb haze layering observed between 6130 and 6140 km could be correlated with temperature inversions detected by the Mariner 5 radio-occultation experiment. A model is proposed wherein the concentration of particles increases rapidly with an effective scale height of about 2 km as one descends about 10 km from the limb haze to the main polarization cloud deck.
Document ID
19750059047
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
Authors
Oleary, B.
(Hampshire College Amherst, Mass., United States)
Date Acquired
August 8, 2013
Publication Date
June 1, 1975
Subject Category
Lunar And Planetary Exploration
Accession Number
75A43119
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NGL-22-010-023
CONTRACT_GRANT: JPL-953550
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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