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Published March 29, 1974 | public
Journal Article

Preliminary Infrared Radiometry of Venus from Mariner 10

Abstract

The intensity of emission at 45 micrometers, measured with high spatial resolution along a single crossing of the Venus disk, is presented. On the average, the observed darkening toward the limb varies nearly linearly with the cosine of the emission angle. The brightness temperature, extrapolated to normal emission, is 255° K. The limb darkening curve, interpreted in a linear approximation, implies that the atmosphere is quite opaque, with an absorption coefficient of 0.24 per kilometer. Changes in curvature present in the limb darkening curve suggest the existence of thermal inhomogeneities with scale comparable to that of the dark markings shown by ultraviolet images.

Additional Information

© 1974 American Association for the Advancement of Science. Received 4 March 1974. We thank the entire Mariner team, both at JPL and at Santa Barbara Research Center, for making this mission successful. We thank J . Bennett for help with the data analysis, J . Engel for his work as leader of the radiometry group at SBRC, and T. Clarke for work as instrument engineer. For helpful discussions concerning the ultraviolet markings, we thank M. Belton.

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 23, 2023