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LIR: Longwave Infrared Camera onboard the Venus orbiter Akatsuki

2011; Springer Nature; Volume: 63; Issue: 9 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5047/eps.2011.06.019

1880-5981

Tetsuya Fukuhara, Makoto Taguchi, Takeshi Imamura, Masato Nakamura, Munetaka Ueno, Makoto Suzuki, N. Iwagami, Mitsuteru Sato, Kazuaki Mitsuyama, George L. Hashimoto, Ryo Ohshima, Toru Kouyama, Hiroki Ando, Masahiko Futaguchi,

Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life

The Longwave Infrared Camera (LIR) is one of a suite of cameras onboard the Venus orbiter Akatsuki. It will take images of thermal radiation in the wavelength range of 8–12 µm emitted by the Venus cloud tops. The use of an uncooled micro-bolometer array as an infrared image sensor makes LIR a lightweight, small and low-power consumption instrument with a required noise equivalent temperature difference of 0.3 K. Temperature and horizontal wind fields at the cloud-top will be retrieved for both dayside and nightside with equal quality. This will provide key observations to understand the mechanism of super rotation and the thermal budget of the planet. LIR will also monitor variations of the polar dipole and collar which are characteristic thermal features in the Venusian atmosphere. Mechanisms of the upper-cloud formation will be investigated using sequences of close-up images. The morphology of the nightside upper cloud will be studied in detail for the first time.