Pluto’s Atmosphere in Plateau Phase Since 2015 from a Stellar Occultation at Devasthal
@article{Sicardy2021PlutosAI, title={Pluto’s Atmosphere in Plateau Phase Since 2015 from a Stellar Occultation at Devasthal}, author={Bruno Sicardy and Nagarhalli M. Ashok and Anandmayee Tej and Ganesh Pawar and Shishir Deshmukh and Ameya Deshpande and Saurabh Sharma and Josselin Desmars and Marcelo Assafin and Jos{\'e} Luis Ortiz and Gustavo Benedetti-Rossi and Felipe Braga-Ribas and Roberto Vieira-Martins and Pablo Santos-Sanz and Krishan Chand and Bhuwan C. Bhatt}, journal={The Astrophysical Journal Letters}, year={2021}, volume={923} }
A stellar occultation by Pluto was observed on 2020 June 6 with the 1.3 m and 3.6 m telescopes located at Devasthal, Nainital, India, using imaging systems in the I and H bands, respectively. From this event, we derive a surface pressure for Pluto’s atmosphere of psurf=12.23−0.38+0.65 μbar. This shows that Pluto’s atmosphere has been in a plateau phase since mid-2015, a result which is in excellent agreement with the Pluto volatile transport model of Meza et al. This value does not support the…
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