Images and topographic relief at the North Pole of Venus

Abstract

We report on the analysis of unique coverage of the north pole of Venus using a subset of 13 images from a total of about 775 synthetic aperture radar orbits during cycle 1 of the Magellan mission. We present images at 13 distinctly different azimuths that range over 360° in longitude and that show the topographic relief at vastly different imaging geometries at intervals of about 20°. A pair of intersecting or crossing orbits is used to assess the topographic relief with stereo radargrammetric techniques, and to refine this assessment using a multi‐image clinometric approach. We show that the pole is located in accentuated topography with elevation differences in the range of no more than 1 km. We conclude that pinpointing the location of the pole from the overlapping images and standard mission data is accurate to within about 100 pixels or 8 km (RMS).

Analysis of Venusian steep‐sided domes utilizing stereo‐derived topography

“…[8] Stereo-derived topography was generated using the radargrammetric method described by Leberl et al [1992]. This study utilizes the Magellan Stereo Toolkit (MST) to derive topography from the stereo data.…”

Recent Trend and Advance of Synthetic Aperture Radar with Selected Topics

“…The main difference between the two approaches is that the parallax measurements are made using the phase difference in InSAR and amplitude in radargrammetry. Radargrammetry has been used for producing the surface relief of the planet Venus by the S-band Magellan-SAR [320][321][322] and Earth by RADARSAT [323] with recent examples by TerraSAR-X [324], Cosmo-SkyMed [325], and the combination of the both [326]. These techniques require multiple sets of complex (InSAR) or amplitude (radargrammetry) SAR data.…”