Pluto's Lower Atmosphere from Stellar Occultations

Details Pluto's Lower Atmosphere from Stellar Occultations Pluto's Lower Atmosphere from Stellar Occultations

Sep 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008dps....40.3603y&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #40, #36.03; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 40, p.461

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

1

Scientific paper

Ever since the Pluto occultation of 1988, the nature of Pluto's lower atmosphere has been a mystery: the lightcurve shows a difference between the upper and lower atmosphere, but it has been unclear whether this is due to hazes, a steep thermal gradient, or a combination of the two (Elliot & Young, 1992 AJ 103, 991; Hubbard et al. 1990, Icarus, 84, 1) Recent high-quality lightcurves allow us to place limits on the haze in Pluto's atmosphere. Especially important is the dual-wavelength (0.5 and 0.8 micron) occultation observed from Mount John Observatory in New Zealand on 2007 July 31. This site was 60 ± 4 km from the central track of the shadow, and the lightcurves clearly show a central flash, or a brightening due to strong lateral refocusing and the convergence of multiple images around the limb of an elliptical atmosphere. These lightcurves constrain the structure of the lower atmosphere in three ways. First, the surface-grazing ray must have a large enough bending angle to reach the center of the shadow. Second, haze of sufficient optical depth to affect the main drop in the lightcurve will also decrease the height of the central flash. The height and location of the central flash can be well modeled with a clear atmosphere. Third, hazes of the size expected at Pluto will have a wavelength-dependent absorption, but the red and blue channels of the Mount John lightcurves show no variation with wavelength. We will discuss limits on the hazes, and place these limits in the context of Triton hazes, heating by dust, and New Horizons detection limits.

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