Grazing Occultation reveals Gravity Wave Breaking in Pluto's High Atmosphere

Details Grazing Occultation reveals Gravity Wave Breaking in Pluto's High Atmosphere Grazing Occultation reveals Gravity Wave Breaking in Pluto's High Atmosphere

Oct 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007dps....39.5213k&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #39, #52.13; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.519

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Occultation observations of the star P445.3 (2UCAC 25823784; McDonald & Elliot 2000, AJ 120, 1599) by (134340) Pluto on 2007 March 18.453 UT were simultaneously collected in visible and H-band wavelengths from the 6.5-m MMT (Mt. Hopkins) in Arizona. The event was grazing and slow (6.77 km/s), lasting 4 minutes. These conditions facilitated the detection of large-scale, nearly limb-aligned features in Pluto's atmosphere over a pressure range of 0.1-0.7 μbar (0.01-0.07 Pa; radius range of 1500-1350 km). The data are high signal-to-noise and show these features to be fully resolved and achromatic. The scintillation increases with depth in Pluto's atmosphere and indicates a high-frequency cutoff operating on a broad-band spectrum of gravity waves generated deeper in Pluto's atmosphere. The data are in excellent agreement with atmospheric gravity wave theory (Fritts 1984, RGSP 22, 275). Observations reported here were obtained at the MMT Observatory, a joint facility of The University of Arizona and the Smithsonian Institution. The integration and alignment of both cameras was funded by the Astronomy Camp science education program. We also acknowledge support from NASA's Planetary Astronomy Program via grants NNG04GE48G and NNG04GF25G.

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