Lower atmosphere and pressure evolution on Pluto from ground-based stellar occultations, 1988-2016

0518360 - ASÚ 2020 RIV FR eng J - Článek v odborném periodiku
Meza, E. - Sicardy, B. - Assafin, M. - Ortiz, J.L. - Bertrand, T. - Lellouch, E. - Desmars, J. - Forget, F. - Berard, D. - Jelínek, Martin - Cunniffe, Ronan … celkem 170 autorů
Lower atmosphere and pressure evolution on Pluto from ground-based stellar occultations, 1988-2016.
Astronomy & Astrophysics. Roč. 625, May (2019), č. článku A42. ISSN 0004-6361. E-ISSN 1432-0746
Institucionální podpora: RVO:67985815 ; RVO:68378271
Klíčová slova: observational methods * data analysis * planets and satellites
Obor OECD: Astronomy (including astrophysics,space science); Particles and field physics (FZU-D)
Impakt faktor: 5.636, rok: 2019
Způsob publikování: Open access

Eleven stellar occultations by Pluto observed between 2002 and 2016 are used to retrieve atmospheric profiles (density, pressure, temperature) between altitude levels of similar to 5 and similar to 380 km (i.e. pressures from similar to 10 mu bar to 10 nbar). Pressure has suffered a monotonic increase from 1988 to 2016, that is compared to a seasonal volatile transport model, from which tight constraints on a combination of albedo and emissivity of N-2 ice are derived. A central flash observed on 2015 June 29 is consistent with New Horizons REX profiles, provided that (a) large diurnal temperature variations (not expected by current models) occur over Sputnik Planitia - and/or (b) hazes with tangential optical depth of similar to 0.3 are present at 4-7 km altitude levels - and/or (c) the nominal REX density values are overestimated by an implausibly large factor of similar to 20% and/or (d) higher terrains block part of the flash in the Charon facing hemisphere.
Trvalý link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0303518