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Changes in Pluto’s Atmosphere

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 March 2016

J. L. Elliot
J. L. Elliot*
Affiliation:
Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139 Dept. of Physics, MIT and Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, AZ 86001, USA

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Pluto’s tenuous atmosphere was probed in 1988 with a stellar occultation observed from the Kuiper Airborne Observatory (KAO, Elliot et al. 1989) and a variety of ground-based sites (Millis et al. 1993). These data, subsequent theoretical modeling (e.g. Strobel et al. 1996), and spectroscopic observations (Owen et al. 1993; Young et al. 1997), gave us the following post-occultation picture of Pluto’s atmosphere (Yelle & Elliot 1997; Elliot, Person, & Qu 2003b): N2 is the dominant constituent of the atmosphere, which also contains small amounts of CH4 and CO. These molecules are in vapor-pressure equilibrium with their surface ices, and this process acts as a thermostat to keep the N2 ice at ~38 K around the body. The temperature of the 1-3 μbar pressure region probed by the occultation was ~100 K. The KAO light curve dropped abruptly, however, just below half-light. This abrupt drop could be due to one of two potential properties of Pluto’s atmosphere: extinction, or a steep thermal gradient. Each of these explanations has strengths and weaknesses (Yelle & Elliot 1997; Elliot, et al. 2003b).

Type
II. Special Scientific Sessions
Information
Highlights of Astronomy , Volume 13 , 2005 , pp. 906 - 907
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of Pacific 2005

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