What Is Used To Bounce Radio Off Of Venus?

[LarryL]

The math used by current technology to determine the distance to the sun is simple trigonometry, a right angle, the angle between the sun and Venus as seen from Earth, and the distance to Venus.

Can someone provide a link to whatever it is that sends and receives that radio wave to and from Venus, and any other details about the process?

Thanks.

 

[Catastrophe]

Distance to Sun

Just a mention of bouncing radar but it might suggest a further lead?

Good luck
Cat

Oh, here is another:
"Signals sent from earth will bounce off the surface of Venus and then travel back to earth where we can detect them. Because radar travels at the speed of light (a quantity that is well known from laboratory experiments) you can easily calculate the distance between Venus and Earth at any time."
Thence by trig to Earth-Sun distance.

 

[rod]

In the 1950s and 1960s, a number of Venus radar measurements were made. Symposium on Radar and Radiometric Observations of Venus during the 1962 Conjunction: Study of Venus by CW radar "Between 1 October and 17 December 1962, when Venus was closest to the earth, radar observations were made on a nearly daily basis at the NASA,"JPL Deep Space Instrumentation Facility at Goldstone, Cali- fornia. During these observations, several different experiments were performed."

There is a 10 page report attached too at the NASA ADS link--Rod

 

[Catastrophe]

Getting warmer:
"The radar method of distance determination involves timing the interval between transmission of a radar pulse by a powerful radio telescope on Earth and the reception of its echo from the planet. Thus if EP, c and t are the Earth-planet distance, the velocity of radio waves and the time interval, respectively,
EP = ½ct."

Ref:
phy105 - celestial mechanics - planetary distances - vik dhillon

Is that what you need?

 

[lcarlson]

Thank you for the excellent links, folks!

 

[DrJoePesce]

The powerful radar at the US National Science Foundations's (NSF) Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico is used to study the surface of Venus (and other solar system objects). Here are two such images. Note the radar was transmitted by Arecibo and the returning signal picked up by the NSF's Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia:

Arecibo-GBT Image of Venus - National Radio Astronomy Observatory

This is a radar image of the planet Venus made by transmitting a signal at 13 cm wavelength from Arecibo and using the GBT to detect the reflection off its surface. Brighter parts of the image indicate a rougher surface, while dark regions are smoother (on centimeter to meter scales). Many...

public.nrao.edu

Venus as Seen in Radar with the GBT - National Radio Astronomy Observatory

A projection of the radar data of Venus collected in 2012. Striking surface features -- like mountains and ridges -- are easily seen. The black diagonal band at the center represents areas too close to the Doppler “equator” to obtain well-resolved image data. By combining the highly sensitive...

public.nrao.edu

Arecibo can observe the returning signal as well.

 

[Helio]

Unexpectedly, Earth only sees one face of Venus, the rotation rate of Venus and its orbital path does not let us see more than the one side. So radar images from Earth will never let us see the entire planet.

[This assumes we image when it is closest to us.]