Akatsuki Venus Climate Orbiter |
Akatsuki Venus Climate Orbiter |
Mar 13 2010, 11:29 AM
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#501
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1729 Joined: 3-August 06 From: 43° 35' 53" N 1° 26' 35" E Member No.: 1004 |
I thought it was time to start a separate thread on this mission, launching soon
some good medium-resolution images of the spacecraft are available on JAXA digital archives http://jda.jaxa.jp/jda/p3_e.php?time=N&...mp;mission=4066 |
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Jun 11 2012, 11:24 AM
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#502
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1729 Joined: 3-August 06 From: 43° 35' 53" N 1° 26' 35" E Member No.: 1004 |
some rare scientific results from Akatsuki's Venus flyby
Characteristic features in Venus’ nightside cloud-top temperature obtained by Akatsuki/LIR JAXA has a summary (in Japanese only) on the mission webpage |
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Jun 29 2012, 08:06 AM
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#503
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Member Group: Members Posts: 817 Joined: 17-April 10 From: Kamakura, Japan Member No.: 5323 |
some rare scientific results from Akatsuki's Venus flyby Characteristic features in Venus’ nightside cloud-top temperature obtained by Akatsuki/LIR JAXA has a summary (in Japanese only) on the mission webpage [8 June 2012] Venus night side temperature distribution seen by the LIR camera (actually, there two more reports in between, but they relate to Venus going across the Sun. So, I am not translating them. P) An attempt was made to capture the image of Venus by the onboard camera on the night of 9 December 2010 while Aklatsuki was limping away from Venus, being very much mindfull of the scar on its bottom. At this time Akatsuki was already 600,000 km away from Venus, but the LIR camera managed to capture the whole surface. There had been a few sporadic spectrographic observations made both from the ground stations and space probes this was the first ever snap shot of this kind. During the two minutes period in which 32 cumulative images were to be made the attitude of Akatsuki was somewhat disturbed. To combat this issue we position -corrected these cumulative images and layed them over one another and actually came up with a slightly better image in terms of resolution. If you take a look at this image and analyse the so called peripheral temperature reduction by which the surface temperature of Venus seems to go lower as you look away from the centre of the disk towards the peripheral area. By analysing it carefully we concluded that the reason is due to the reduction in number of cloud particles in the upper atmosphere of Venus. Observed absolute temperatures are staying relatively higher compared with past observations. This is thought to be due to the fact that the temperatures are actually rising, or alternatively we are looking at the lower layers with higher temperaturers seen through thinning upper layer clouds. In addition, we can observe at the poles low temperature band zones (Polar clour) and similar band structures in mid to lower attitude areas with even finer temp. distributions on a much smaller scale. At the polar regions we may even be seeing polar dipole regions with high temperatures. Akatsuiki is in good shape except for the main engine. The next earliest opportunity for re-insertion is end 2015. Once placed in its final circular orbit we expect to be able to obtain far superier resolution on a continuous basis. (end of translation, P) |
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