Spacecraft and Stellar Occultations by Turbulent Planetary Atmospheres. A Theoretical Investigation of Various Wave Propagation Effects and Their Impact on Derived Profiles of Refractivity, Temperature and Pressure,
Abstract
The long propagation paths involved in radio and stellar occultations by turbulent planetary atmospheres require that the classical, weak scattering scintillation theory be expanded to account for the inhomogeneous ambient atmosphere upon which the turbulence is superimposed. Such coupling between the turbulent and the ambient components of refractivity reduces the scintillation index by less than a factor of two in shallow radio occultations. For stellar occultations the reduction varies between this value for very small projected stellar radii, to approximately a factor of 3.6 when the projected stellar radius above the planetary limb greatly exceeds the radius of the free-space Fresnel zone at this distance. More profound changes are found in the scintillation power spectrum, the shape of which depends strongly on both occultation depth and geometry when coupling to the inhomogeneous background is properly accounted for. Second-order, systematic propagation effects calculated from both geometrical optics and a wave-optical formulation show that the average phase velocity is increased in the presence of turbulence. The finite wavelength dependence of the phase path bias implies that an initially non-dispersive medium becomes slightly dispersive by the addition of turbulence. Atmospheric profiles derived from occultations by turbulent planetary atmospheres differ only slightly from those of the corresponding non-turbulent atmosphere when the weak scattering condition is satisfied.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 08, 1981
- Accession Number
- ADA103069
Entities
People
- Bjarne Sigurd Haugstad
Organizations
- Norwegian Defence Research Establishment