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Science 14 June 1996:
Vol. 272. no. 5268, pp. 1628 - 1631
DOI: 10.1126/science.272.5268.1628
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Reports

Electrical Properties of the Venus Surface from Bistatic Radar Observations

Gordon H. Pettengill, * Peter G. Ford, Richard A. Simpson

A bistatic radar experiment in 1994, involving reception on Earth of a specularly reflected, linearly polarized 13-centimeter-wavelength signal transmitted from the Magellan spacecraft in orbit around Venus, has established that the surface materials viewed at low and intermediate altitudes on Venus have a relative dielectric permittivity of 4.0 ± 0.5. However, bistatic results for the Maxwell Montes highlands imply an electrically lossy surface with an imaginary dielectric permittivity of -i 100 ± 50, probably associated with a specific conductivity of about 13 mhos per meter. Candidates for highlands surface composition include ferroelectrics, a thin frost of elemental tellurium, or a plating of magnetite or pyrites.

G. H. Pettengill and P. G. Ford, Center for Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
R. A. Simpson, Center for Radar Astronomy, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
The Possibility of Ice on the Moon.
S. J. Weidenschilling;, S. Nozette, E. M. Shoemaker, P. Spudis, C. L. Lichtenberg;, N. J. Stacy, D. B. Campbell, and P. G. Ford; (1997)
Science 278, 144-145
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