Radar Image of Mars

This is a radar image of Mars, made with the Goldstone-VLA radar system in 1988. Red areas are areas of high radar reflectivity. The south polar ice cap, at the bottom of the image, is the area of highest reflectivity. The other areas of high reflectivity are associated with the giant shield volcanoes of the Tharsis ridge. The dark area to the West of the Tharsis ridge showed no detectable radar echoes. The investigators call this region the "Stealth" region and believe it is a huge deposit of low density, volcanic ash with an absence of volume scatterers (rocks) to depths of many meters.

The JPL/DSN Goldstone 70-meter antenna reflected a CW signal at a wavelength of 3.5 cm with 350 kW of power off the surface of Mars. The signal was received by VLA antennas in the A-array. This gave a resolution of 0.2", or 92 km on the surface of Mars at the sub-earth point. Image in "depolarized" mode (i.e. right circular polarization transmitted, and right circular polarization received).

Legacy Astronomical Images

NRAO/AUI/NSF does not hold full copyright for this image. Contact the archivist for details.

Legacy Astronomical Image

Mars

D. Muhleman, B. Butler, A. Grossman, M. Slade

Very Large Array (VLA)

Goldstone

1988-00-00

continuum

X

3.6 cm

8.4 GHz

RA 25:0:0.000, Dec: 0:0:0.000 (J2000)

Solar System Series

Planets Unit