Pluto Insolation and the South Polar Cap

Details Pluto Insolation and the South Polar Cap Pluto Insolation and the South Polar Cap

May 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009agusm.p31c..04r&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2009, abstract #P31C-04

Other

5416 Glaciation, 5462 Polar Regions, 6270 Pluto And Satellites, 6285 Trans-Neptunian Objects

Scientific paper

Pluto's south polar cap is a puzzle. The planet's southern cap may be brighter than the north, even though it was the south pole which faced the Sun on Pluto's recent approach to perihelion. One would think that the brighter pole would be the one which received less insolation: volatiles would be expected to sublimate from the sunny south and condense in the north, enlarging the north polar cap with fresh and bright frost. Thus the north pole should be brighter than the south. However, it may be the other way around, although the evidence is not entirely clear. One suggested explanation of the (possible) paradox is that the south polar cap has, over the last several million years, received less insolation than the north, accumulating a larger supply of volatiles. However, expressing the solar insolation in terms of Pluto's orbital elements clearly shows that both the north and south poles have received nearly the same amount of sunlight over the past several million years. Hence any difference between the polar caps cannot be ascribed to a difference in the amount of long-term insolation received at each pole. Thus any difference between the poles, if there is one, must invoke conditions peculiar to Pluto's climate system, rather than rely on insolation alone.

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