# # Program information file # PROGRAM_ID 2022A058 PROGRAM_TITLE Spectral Image Cubes of Venus in Support of Akatsuki Observations PROGRAM_INV1 Eliot Young PROGRAM_INV2 Mark Bullock PROGRAM_INV3 Kandice Lea Jessup PROGRAM_INV4 Kevin McGouldrick PROGRAM_INV5 Sarah Vierling PROGRAM_SCICAT major planets / satellites PROGRAM_ABSTRACT_BEG The Akatsuki mission will be imaging Venus with its UVI and LIR cameras. The UVI images track Venus's dayside cloud tops [at 70 km altitude] and the LIR images produce full-disk thermal maps from altitudes near 66 km. UVI images at 283 and 365 nm have been used to track clouds and address the sources and sinks that drive Venus's super-rotating atmosphere. LIR images [8-12 um] have shown stationary features launched by mountain waves and evidence for planetary scale waves. The proposed SpeX observations complement the Akatsuki data by providing IR image cubes [0.8 to 2.5 um] of Venus's nightside, where mid-level clouds [48-55 km altitude] show up as silhouettes, backlit against thermal photons from Venus itself. The IRTF image cubes improve the Akatsuki data set by [a] tracking clouds at lower altitudes and [b] mapping cloud properties and trace gas abundances. SpeX spatial resolution on Venus will be 120-150 km, compared to about 30 km from the UVI camera. The addition of the IRTF spectral image cubes will help address outstanding questions, mostly by providing observations that can be compared to GCM [General Circulation Models]. PROGRAM_ABSTRACT_END