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Radar Anomaly (Venus)

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  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Planetary Landforms

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Definition

A high reflectivity radar feature concentrated in the Venusian highlands.

Category

A type of radar feature

Description

Strong radar signal reflected from elevations above about 2.5 km (near the equator) or 5 km (at 60°N) on Venus that becomes less pronounced at the highest elevations (Klose et al. 1992); there is also a commensurate low microwave emissivity at the same locations. The planetary average reflectivity on Venus is 0.14 ± 0.03. However, this reflectivity ranges between 0.35 ± 0.04 and 0.43 ± 0.05 in the highlands (Pettengill et al. 1988). Most of the high-altitude regions displaying anomalous reflectivity and emissivity are also very rough on centimeter to meter scales, making inference of surface properties difficult. A notable exception is the crater Cleopatra on the flank of Maxwell Montes, which has enough mirror-like surface elements that a quasi-specular echo could be measured during Magellan bistatic radar experiments in 1994.

Subtypes

Enhanced reflectivity...

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Arkansas Center for Space & Planetary Sciences, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, USA

    Erika Kohler

Authors
  1. Erika Kohler
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Correspondence to Erika Kohler .

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© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Kohler, E. (2014). Radar Anomaly (Venus). In: Encyclopedia of Planetary Landforms. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9213-9_289-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9213-9_289-1

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  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-9213-9

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