Mariner Mission to VenusJet Propulsion Laboratory (U.S.)
Science
Mariner Mission to Venus
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (U.S.)
Project Mariner (U.S.)
The accumulated radiation inside the counters was only 3 roentgens, and
during the one solar storm recorded on October 23 and 24, the dosage
measured only about ¼ roentgen. In other words, the dosage amounts to
about one-thousandth of the usually accepted “half-lethal” dosage, or
that level at which half of the persons exposed would die. An astronaut
might accept many times the dosage detected by Mariner II without
serious effects.
The experiment also showed little variation in density of charged
particles during the trip, even with a 30% decrease in distance from the
Sun, and no apparent increase due to magnetically trapped particles or
radiation belts near Venus as compared with interplanetary space.
However, these measurements were made during a period when the Sun was
slowly decreasing in activity at the end of an 11-year cycle. The Sun
spots will be at a minimum in 1964-1965, when galactic cosmic rays will
sharply increase. Further experiments are needed to sample the charged
particles in space under all conditions.
The lack of change measured by the ionization chamber during the mission
was significant; the cosmic-ray flux of approximately 3 particles per
square centimeter per second throughout the flight was an unusually
constant value. A clear increase in high-energy particles (10 Mev to
about 800 Mev) emitted by the Sun was noted only once: a flare-up
between 7:42 and 8:45 a.m., PST, October 23. The ionization chamber
reading began to increase before the flare disappeared. From a
background reading of 670 ion pairs per cubic centimeter per second per
standard atmosphere, it went to a peak value of 18,000, varied a bit,
and remained above 10,000 for 6 hours before gradually decreasing over a
period of several days. Meanwhile, the flux of the particles detected by
the Geiger counter rose from the background count of 3 to a peak of 16
per square centimeter per second. Ionization thus increased much more
than the number of particles, indicating to the scientists that the
high-energy particles coming from the Sun might have had much lower
average energies than the galactic cosmic rays.
[Illustration: _Data obtained by microwave radiometer are
illustrated at left; results of infrared radiometer experiment are
shown at right. Note how moving spacecraft sees more of atmosphere
along limb or edge of planet, less in center._]
In contrast, the low-energy experiment detected the October 23 event,
and eight or ten others not seen by the high-energy detectors. These
must have been low-penetrating particles excluded by the thicker walls
of the high-energy instrument. These particles were perhaps protons
between 0.5 and 10 Mev or electrons between 0.04 and 0.5 Mev.
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