Question

Looking at that list of LRO's instruments, which of them might still be useful for studying Venus, and why?

Will any of them be rendered mostly useless by going into orbit around Venus instead of into orbit around the Moon?

Answer 1

there are total six instruments on lunar reconnaissance orbiter as - cosmic ray telescope, LRO camera, mini RF , Lyman alpha mapping project, neutron detector, lunar orbiter laser altimeter.

1) among all the instruments following are can used for study of Venus -

A) The subpart of cosmic ray telescope is Diviner lunar radiometer which measure thermal emissions from moon . This can be used for Venus because atmosphere of Venus traps the thermal radiation and then release it to outer space.

B) Lyman alpha mapping projector works on the radiation of UV emitted by moon. So we can also use this instrument for Venus because Venus emits UV radiation. Venus emits IR and UV radiation.

C) the LRO camera is works on the principles of push broom imaging which can map the all surface using thermal radiation so for mapping Venus thus instrument can be useful.

2) among all above instrument , there is one instrument which is useless for Venus study. That is lunar orbiter neutron detector. This instrument used for the detecting ice cap and water on the moon. But on the Venus the temperature of the surface is 400 K , so there is no possibility of ice and frozen water and also Venus has cloud of co2 which again decline the possibility of running water. Hence neutron detector has no work on venus.