Temporal and Spatial Variation of the Geometric Albedo of Uranus, 1953--1996

Details Temporal and Spatial Variation of the Geometric Albedo of Uranus, 1953--1996 Temporal and Spatial Variation of the Geometric Albedo of Uranus, 1953--1996

Jul 1997

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1997dps....29.1510l&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #29, #15.10; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 29, p.993

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

1

Scientific paper

Using photoelectic broadband B magnitudes of Uranus obtained annually from 1953 to 1966 by Serkowski and Jerzykiewicz, and Stromgren b, y magnitudes obtained from 1972 through 1996 by Thompson and me, I have assembled a lightcurve for Uranus suitable for investigating seasonal and intrinsic variability and the distribution of reflectivity with latitude. The B and b filters lie in the blue continuum at 440 and 472 nm, respectively, while the y filter at 551 nm includes the methane band at 546 nm. The 1953--1966 B observations cover sub-Earth latitudes from 60° N to 0°. The 1972--1996 observations bracket the ``pole-on'' 1986 apparition and Voyager encounter, and include sub-Earth latitudes from 82° S to 45° S. The 1972--1996 y lightcurve is asymmetrical. The rising branch prior to 1986 is steeper than the falling branch after 1986, and the discrepancy between its brightness in 1975 (sub-Earth latitude 43° S) and 1996 (sub-Earth latitude 45° S) is 0.024 mag. The corresponding b magnitudes for these two apparitions are identical. I modeled the lightcurve using the known oblateness of Uranus (0.024) and the observed latitudinal variation of I/F obtained during the 1986 Voyager encounter (Smith et al., Science, 4 July 1986). The b lightcurve is reasonably consistent with the Voyager blue filter I/F distribution, but the y lightcurve indicates a stronger brightening toward the pole than shown by the Voyager green I/F curve. This work is supported by NASA grant NAG5-3948.

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