Planetary spectra for anisotropic scattering

Abstract

Some of the effects on planetary spectra that would be produced by departures from isotropic scattering are examined. The phase function is the simplest departure to handle analytically and the only phase function, other than the isotropic one, that can be incorporated into a Chandrasekhar first approximation. This approach has the advantage of illustrating trends resulting from anisotropies while retaining the simplicity that yields physical insight. An algebraic solution to the two sets of anisotropic H functions is developed in the appendix. It is readily adaptable to progammable desk calculators and gives emergent intensities accurate to 0.3 percent, which is sufficient even for spectroscopic analysis.