LIR: Longwave Infrared Camera onboard the Venus orbiter Akatsuki

The solar wind interaction with Venus through the eyes of the Pioneer Venus Orbiter

Venus has no internal magnetic dynamo and thus its ionosphere and hot oxygen exosphere dominate the interaction with the solar wind. The solar wind at 0.72AU has a dynamic pressure that ranges from 4.5 nPa (at solar max) to 6.6 nPa (at solar min), and its flow past the planet produces a shock of typical magnetosonic Mach number 5 at the subsolar point. At solar maximum the pressure in the ionos...

Longwave infrared compressive hyperspectral imager

Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) is developing a longwave infrared (LWIR) compressive sensing hyperspectral imager (CS HSI) based on a single pixel architecture for standoff vapor phase plume detection. The sensor employs novel use of a high throughput stationary interferometer and a digital micromirror device (DMD) converted for LWIR operation in place of the traditional cooled LWIR focal plane ar...

Initial observations of the nightside ionosphere of venus from pioneer venus orbiter radio occultations.

Pioneer Venus orbiter dual-frequency radio occultation measurements have produced many electron density profiles of the nightside ionosphere of Venus. Thirty-six of these profiles, measured at solar zenith angles (chi) from 90.60 degrees to 163.5 degrees , are discussed here. In the "deep" nightside ionosphere (chi > 110 degrees ), the structure and magnitude of the ionization peak are highly v...

Solar Orbiter Will Process Data Onboard Using Xilinx FPGAs

Pioneer Venus Orbiter observations of a solar wind quasi-invariant

The recently suggested solar wind quasi-invariant [ QI ≡ (B/8π)/(ρv/2)] is a combination of magnetic field strength B, plasma density ρ and solar wind speed v. Measured in the solar wind near the Earth, the median value of QI was shown to be a reliable index of solar activity for the 28 year period holding a linear relation with sunspot numbers (SSN) with a high correlation coefficient (cc) of ...