A mosaic imaging study of the northern and southern hemispheres of the nearside of the Moon based on the Sanya Incoherent Scatter Radar

Abstract

When ground-based radar and range-Doppler algorithm are used to image the nearside of the Moon, it is inevitable to encounter the problem of "north-south ambiguity". This is because when the range-Doppler imaging algorithm is used to image a rotating celestial body, the echoes of the two points conjugated at the apparent equator are superposed together and cannot be resolved in the range-Doppler image. We propose a solution to this problem based on the Sanya Incoherent Scatter Radar, namely the mosaic imaging technology of the northern and southern hemispheres of the near side of the Moon. In this technology, two independent experiments were carried out to separately illuminate the northern and southern hemispheres of the nearside of the Moon by adjusting the beam direction to a specific position. Finally, a complete Moon nearside map was obtained by combining the images of the northern and southern hemispheres. The results of experiments show that this technique can successfully get the Moon images, but there are still some defects that need to be improved.

Keywords

• range-doppler imaging
• moon image
• north-south ambiguity
• sanya incoherent scatter radar