Документ взят из кэша поисковой машины. Адрес оригинального документа : http://www.naic.edu/vscience/schedule/tpfiles/BlacktagR1821tp.ps Дата изменения: Mon Apr 19 20:00:16 2004 Дата индексирования: Sat Dec 22 20:58:13 2007 Кодировка: Поисковые слова: saturn's moon

Proposal Identication No.: R1821 Date Received: 2003-Jun-02 14:06:59
Technical Page
Proposal Type: Regular
General Category: Planetary Radar
Sub-Category: Continuum
Observation Category: Solar System
Total Time Requested: 12 Hours
Proposal Title: S-Band Radar Observations of Rhea
ABSTRACT:
We request four days of S-band radar observations of Rhea, the largest of the mid-sized moons of Saturn, to
measure its globally averaged radar scattering properties. From optical and infrared measurements, its surface is
known to be fairly clean water ice with a high albedo. Since clean water ice is extremely transparent at centimeter
wavelengths, measurement of Rhea's radar re ectivity will indicate the presence of any absorbing component. The
most plausible absorber would be ammonia which is expected to be a large component of Saturn's satellites but has
yet to be directly observed. Depending on the amount of absorber present, in four days we expect a signal-to-noise
ratio ranging from about 3 (if a large amount) up to about 20 (if fairly pure water ice). The observations are timed
to be near Saturn opposition to maximize echo strength, with the proposed dates nearly matching times of greatest
elongation from Saturn.
Name Institution E-mail Phone Student
Greg Black University of Vir-
ginia
gblack@virginia.edu 434-243-8941 no
Service Observing Request Remot e Observing Request
X None No
All of the observing run. X Maybe
Part of the observing run. Yes
Queue Observing
Instrument Setup
S-Band radar S-band receiver
Atmospheric Observation Instruments:
Special Equipment or setup: none
RFI Considerations
1

Frequency Ranges Planned
2380
2