Occurrence characteristics of VLF bursts in the nightside ionosphere of Venus

Abstract

Many of the impulsive VLF signals observed by the Pioneer Venus orbiter electric field detector (OEFD) in the nightside ionosphere have been interpreted as arising from lightning in the Venus atmosphere. In order to determine the characteristics of the source, and to compare with terrestrial lightning, we determine the normalized occurrence rate for individual bursts at Venus, as opposed to previous studies of activity in 30‐s intervals. We establish burst identification criteria which take into account the decay constant of the instrument to calculate the burst rate. Under the assumption that all OEFD observations in the nightside ionosphere are due to impulsive signals, we find that the 100‐Hz channel has the highest burst rate, about 0.20/s in the altitude range 150–180 km and in the postmidnight local time sector. The burst occurrence rates for all four frequency channels decrease with increasing altitude. Burst rates at frequencies above 100 Hz are greater in the premidnight hours while 100‐Hz signals peak after midnight; however, these burst rates vary from orbit to orbit. The 100‐Hz low‐frequency burst rate has a stronger dependence on the magnetic field strength than the higher‐frequency rates. Most 100‐Hz bursts are closely spaced and occur independently of signals at higher frequencies. These dependences suggest that the low‐ and high‐frequency signals have different propagation mechanisms. The properties of the bursts are generally consistent with a lightning source, and the planet‐wide burst rate at Venus may be comparable to or larger than the terrestrial lightning rate.