Neptune from Keck: Tracking Down the Scatterers

Details Neptune from Keck: Tracking Down the Scatterers Neptune from Keck: Tracking Down the Scatterers

Sep 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006dps....38.3908r&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #38, #39.08; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.555

Physics

Optics

Scientific paper

In July 2004, disk-resolved images of Neptune were obtained in nine near-infrared filters using adaptive optics on the Keck 10-meter telescope on Mauna Kea. Images in the H, J, and K' filters have been analyzed to determine the vertical structure of Neptune's atmosphere at low southern latitudes. Even latitudes without obvious albedo features are not longitudinally homogeneous; the center-to-limb (CTL) brightness curves display variations on scales of order 10° in longitude.
The observations favor stratospheric haze models with substantial particle charge (>20; electrons / μm diameter) and high production rates (> 3×10-15 g cm-2 s-1), i.e. a large number of relatively small stratospheric haze particles. The methane cloud optical depth is around 2; the depth of the optically thick cloud at the base of the visible atmosphere is about 5 bars. Surprisingly, it is necessary to adjust the single scattering albedo of this 5-bar cloud to fit both the H and J filters simultaneously (although both filters include strong methane absorption bands which block all sunlight at altitudes well above the 5-bar level, both also include small windows essentially free of methane absorption). The lower cloud albedo decreases by about 10% between 1.1 μm and 1.6 μm.
This work was funded through the NASA Planetary Atmospheres program.

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