Neptune From Keck: Tracking Down The Scatterers

Details Neptune From Keck: Tracking Down The Scatterers Neptune From Keck: Tracking Down The Scatterers

Oct 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010dps....42.4406r&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #42, #44.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.1046

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 cloud-free portions of Neptune's atmosphere at low southern latitudes. The observations favor stratospheric haze models with substantial particle charge
( 32 electrons / μm diameter) and high production rates
( 6.5×10-15 g cm-2 s-1), i.e. a large number of relatively small stratospheric haze particles. Tropospheric (i.e. methane) cloud properties are less well determined, but there are indications that the methane cloud has substantial optical depth ( 4) and resides fairly deep, between about 1.8 and 1.95 bars; the depth of the optically thick cloud at the base of the visible atmosphere is about 5 bars. While this atmospheric model was derived for regions of Neptune's atmosphere which appeared devoid of bright features, we have not found any region on Neptune which can be relied on to be free of local albedo variations. Even latitudes far from the major activity centers (in 2004) at southern mid-latitudes display localized brightness enhancements on scales of 10° in longitude.
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This work was funded through the NASA Planetary Atmospheres program.

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