Pluto's Atmosphere from the July 2010 Stellar Occultation

Details Pluto's Atmosphere from the July 2010 Stellar Occultation Pluto's Atmosphere from the July 2010 Stellar Occultation

Oct 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010dps....42.2003p&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #42, #20.03; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.983

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We have observed the 4 July 2010 stellar occultation by Pluto as part of our program of monitoring Pluto's atmospheric changes over the last decade. Successful observations were obtained from three sites: Cerro Calan and Cerro Tololo, Chile, as well as the HESS-project site (High Energy Stereoscopic System) in southwestern Namibia. Successful telescope apertures ranged from 0.45 m to 1.0 m and resulted in seven occultation light curves for the event from among the three sites. Simultaneous analysis of the seven light curves indicates that Pluto's atmosphere continues to be stable, as the calculated atmospheric radii are consistent with those detected in 2006 (Elliot et al., AJ 134, 1, 2007) and 2007 (Person et al., AJ 136, 1510, 2008), continuing the stability that followed the large pressure increase detected between 1988 (Millis et al., Icarus 105, 282, 1993) and 2002 (Elliot et al., Nature 424, 165, 2003). We will present the overall astrometric solution as well as current profiles for Pluto's upper atmospheric temperature and pressure obtained from inversion of the light curves (Elliot, Person, and Qu, AJ 126, 1041, 2003).
This work was supported, in part, by grants NNX10AB27G to MIT, NNX08AO50G to Williams College, and NNH08AI17I to the USNO from NASA's Planetary Astronomy Division. The 0.75-m ATOM (Automatic Telescope for Optical Monitoring) light curve was obtained with the generous assistance of the HESS-project staff, arranged by Stefan Wagner and Marcus Hauser of the University of Heidelberg. The 0.45-m Goto telescope at Cerro Calán National Astronomical Observatory, Universidad de Chile, was donated by the Government of Japan. PROMPT (Panchromatic Robotic Optical Monitoring and Polarimetry Telescopes) observations at Cerro Tololo were made possible by the Robert Martin Ayers Science Fund. Student participation was supported in part by NSF's REU program and NASA's Massachusetts Space Grant.

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