Laurence Soderblom, PhD (Former Employee)

During the 1990 Galileo Venus flyby, the Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer investigated the night-side atmosphere of Venus in the spectral range 0.7 to 5.2 micrometers. Multispectral images at high spatial resolution indicate substantial cloud opacity variations in the lower cloud levels, centered at 50 kilometers altitude. Zonal and meridional winds were derived for this level and are...

Magellan radar images of 15 percent of the planet show 135 craters of probable impact origin. Craters more than 15 km across tend to contain central peaks, multiple central peaks, and peak rings. Many craters smaller than 15 km exhibit multiple floors or appear in clusters; these phenomena are attributed to atmospheric breakup of incoming meteoroids. Additionally, the atmosphere appears...

The Magellan Venus orbiter carries only one scientific instrument: a 12.6-centimeter wavelength radar system shared among three data-taking modes. The synthetic-aperture mode images radar echoes from the Venus surface at a resolution of between 120 and 300 meters, depending on spacecraft altitude. In the altimetric mode, relative height measurement accuracies may approach 5 meters...

No abstract available

The location of active geyser-like eruptions and related features close to the current subsolar latitude on Triton suggests a solar energy source for these phenomena. Solidstate greenhouse calculations have shown that sunlight can generate substantially elevated subsurface temperatures. A variety of models for the storage of solar energy in a sub-greenhouse layer and for the supply of...

At least four active geyser-like eruptions were discovered in Voyager 2 images of Triton, Neptune's large satellite. The two best documented eruptions occur as columns of dark material rising to an altitude of about 8 kilometers where dark clouds of material are left suspended to drift downwind over 100 kilometers. The radii of the rising columns appear to be in the range of several tens...