APEX this week: 'Searching for Venus in Iceland' with Gerard Gallardo i Peres

Our Astrobiology and Planetary Exploration (APEX) seminar this Friday 14th February at 13:00 GMT, features the following talk:

• Gerard Gallardo i Peres (Imperial / isardSAT) - Searching for Venus in Iceland: linking volcanic surface characteristics with radar signatures to model future measurements by EnVision and VERITAS

An abstract for Gerard's talk can be found below.

Please note the day and location for APEX this term: Fridays at lunchtime, 1-2 pm GMT, in the G22 Lecture Theatre on the ground floor of the UCL North West Wing building.

A hybrid (in-person and online) format will continue this term but, of course, we warmly encourage in-person attendance to support our visiting speakers.

Details of the forthcoming APEX programme can be found at the link below. The latest information will be advertised in advance of each meeting.  If you are not on our regular mailing lists and are interested in attending these seminars, please contact joanna.fabbri AT ucl.ac.uk.

Talk abstract

Searching for Venus in Iceland: linking volcanic surface characteristics with radar signatures to model future measurements by EnVision and VERITAS - Gerard Gallardo i Peres (Imperial / isardSAT)

The detection and quantification of surface modification processes on Venus, in particular volcanism, is a long-held objective for the Venus science community, as these are key to deciphering the planet’s origin, geological history, and the driving factors behind its runaway greenhouse effect.  Much of what we know from the surface of the planet comes from the NASA Magellan space mission in the 1990s, but this is soon to change: a new suit of radar space missions are scheduled to explore the planet in the 2030s, amongst them the joint ESA/NASA Envision mission and NASA's VERITAS mission. The systematic comparison of future SAR observations of these missions with the Magellan SAR images of the 1990s offers a 40-year baseline for surface change detection; however, such comparison IS NOT a trivial task. 

In this framework, this seminar is about SAR images and radar scattering, and about our field trip to Iceland in August 2024 in search of terrestrial analogues for Venus surface features. In particular, I will address how we can use SAR and field datasets of Iceland to simulate future SAR images on Venus and tackle the challenge of intermission SAR change detection with Magellan.

Links 

• Gerard Gallardo i Peres' academic profile
• APEX programme for this term 
• Recordings of previous APEX talks