Optics of the Moon

Professor Yuriy Shkuratov is Department Head for the Astronomy Department at V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University. He was also the Director of the Astronomical Institute of V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University from 2004-2014. He is also Leading Research Scientist of Radio Astronomy Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. He has more than 700 scientific publications devoted to the investigation of optical properties of solid surfaces of celestial bodies and arbitrary shaped particles. These works include chapters for seven collective monographs. He first obtained images of polarimetric anomalies of the Moon at large phase angles. He has performed numerous laboratory photometric and polarimetric measurements of structure analogs of the lunar regolith, which provide a reliable experimental basis for the verification and selection of theoretical models for the opposition effect and negative polarization. He has contributed theoretical models of light scattering by particles and surfaces with complicated structure. In particular, he first proposed the model of negative polarization based on the mechanism of coherent backscatter enhancement. Dr. Gorden Videen is a research scientist at the Space Science Institute and adjunct faculty member at Texas A&M University. He also has worked on optical characterization of aerosols for the Army Research Laboratory and worked as a Program Manager in Atmospheric Science at the Army Research Office. He has been a Visiting Scientist at the University of Amsterdam, Univerisdad de Cantabria and Kyung Hee University. His background is in optics and he has performed experimental, theoretical, and modeling work investigating polarimetric light scattering and remote sensing of complex systems ranging from atmospheric aerosols and cometary comae to extended regolith systems. Many of these works have focused on obtaining information from the polarization and light-scattering properties of the systems, including the lunar regolith. Dr. Vadym Kaydash is Senior Research Scientist and the Director of the Astronomical Institute of V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University. His research includes analysis and interpretation of Hubble Space Telescope imaging polarimetry of aerosols of the Martian atmosphere, photometric anomalies of the lunar surface using data of SMART-1 lunar mission, and mapping the photometric function variations and the polarization parameters for the nearside of the Moon by telescopic data.