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Albedo of Lunar Features

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Encyclopedia of Lunar Science

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Definition

Albedo (geometric) is the integrated reflectance of a planetary object, measured where the angle between the illumination and direction of incident rays, object, and observer is zero, relative to a Lambert disk (ideally a diffuse surface). Normal albedo is defined as the ratio of a measured radiance (I) to the irradiance (F) of an ideal diffusive Lambert surface with 100% reflectance under the same illumination, measured at zero phase (Hapke 2012; Lucey et al. 2014). The normal albedo over a projected surface can yield the geometric albedo for a specific latitude and longitude, especially for areas lacking limb darkening like at the Moon (Wildey 1977; Lucey et al. 2014).

Albedo of Lunar Regions

From normal albedo measurements, whether using LOLA (Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter) from the LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) or Kaguya (SELENE) data, individual regions differ in their albedos in different wavelengths (Mikhail and Koval 1974; Yokota et al. 2011; Lucey et al. 2014;...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA

    Caitlin Ahrens

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  1. Caitlin Ahrens
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Prairie View A&M University, Houston, TX, USA

    Brian Cudnik

Section Editor information

  1. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA

    Caitlin Ahrens PhD

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Ahrens, C. (2022). Albedo of Lunar Features. In: Cudnik, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Lunar Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05546-6_204-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05546-6_204-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-05546-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-05546-6

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