Abstract
Abstract High-resolution pictures of the limb of Venus taken by the Mariner 10 television camera indicate the presence of tenuous haze layers high in the stratosphere. At least two distinct layers separated by a few kilometers in altitude appear in pictures taken in both orange and ultraviolet light and extend laterally for several thousand kilometers from the equator to high latitudes. Photometric profiles of these hazes have been analyzed to determine their vertical distribution. An “optical barometer” technique for determining the altitudes of the hazes is presented wherein the Rayleigh-scattering component is derived by comparing orange and UV brightness profiles for nearby picture pairs. This technique appears to work very well for the orange/UV pairs which were studied. The derived scale height for CO2gas is 4.2 km, corresponding to a temperature of 200 K, in good agreement with radio occultation data. The optical barometer yields a pressure of 4 mb for the level at which the stint path optical dept...
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