Word: disks
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...irregularities more than a foot or so in width-large enough to scatter the 5-in. waves of the Goldstone transmitter. If Mercury's surface were smoother than that, the radar waves would be reflected from a small highlight in the center of the disk. Instead, the planet is radar bright all over, which means that its whole surface must have irregularities that bounce radar waves back toward the earth...
...radiation in two ways. First, it can concentrate on a small spot in the center of the solar disc and record, in about 27 minutes, the intensity of radiation over the whole ultraviolet spectrum. During its other "mode" of operation, the eye of the spectrometer will scan the whole disk of the sun, back and forth, bottom to top, recording at just one wavelength. Each complete scan will take about four and one-half minutes and will provide a crude ultraviolet picture of the whole sun. Both these kinds of information will be recorded on magnetic tape and relayed...
...cells of a frog's retina. Behind the detectors are layers of electronic components that serve as frog nerve cells. They are interconnected in such a way that they report to the "brain," a smaller light-studded panel, only those objects that a frog would see. If a disk held in front of the large "eye" panel is moving in the proper direction at the proper speed, it appears in lights on the brain panel...
Others on the disk, however, sound too much, like politicians trying too hard to be funny. Sen. Barry Goldwater. Sen. Kenneth Keating, and Sen. Thurston B. Morton struggle valiantly to achieve the gentle touch, without much success...
...instruments made another important observation: the limb (edge) of the Venusian disk appears darker than the center. This "limb darkening" means that microwaves and infra-red radiation really originate at the surface or at some level below the top of the atmosphere. Rays coming from the limb must pass slantwise through a greater thickness of atmosphere, and so appear weaker. This rules out one of the leading theories about the Venusian atmosphere: that it is highly ionized on top and therefore glows, making the planet appear hotter than it really is. Such an atmosphere would be brighter at the edges...