Pluto and Charon's Visible Spectrum (3500-9000 Å)

Details Pluto and Charon's Visible Spectrum (3500-9000 Å) Pluto and Charon's Visible Spectrum (3500-9000 Å)

May 2003

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2003dps....35.2306c&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #35, #23.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 35, p.958

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Uncertainty in the chemical composition of Pluto's atmosphere severely limits our understanding of its physical properties. The only atmospheric gas identified spectroscopically to date has been CH4 (Young et al., 1997), while an upper limit has been set for CO gas (Young et al., 2001). Infrared detection of surface N2 ice (Owen et al., 1993) together with models based on occultation data (Elliot and Young, 1992) indicate that Pluto's atmosphere is probably dominated by CO and/or N2 (Yelle and Lunine, 1989; Hubbard et al., 1990; Stansberry et al., 1994). If the atmosphere is in vapor pressure equilibrium with the surface ice, then N2 gas would dominate the atmosphere with abundances ≳ 90% (Owen et al., 1993). Here we report on a search to identify atmospheric spectral features using data collected with the Steward Observatory 90'' Bok Telescope and the B & C Spectrograph. Pluto-Charon spectra were obtained on five nights in May and June 2003 using 300 l/mm grating blazed in the blue and red spectral regions. We present spectra covering the visible range from 3500 to 9000 Å : (λ /Δ λ ˜ 750 at 6000 Å), and discuss limits set on gases in the atmosphere and extended exosphere of the Pluto-Charon system.
J. C. Cook would like to acknowledge support from NASA Space Grant Fellowship.

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