Related papers: Pluto's global surface composition through pixel-b…

Pluto has a heterogeneous surface, despite a global haze deposition rate of ~1 micrometer per orbit (Cheng et al., 2017; Grundy et al., 2018). While there could be spatial variation in the deposition rate, this has not yet been rigorously…

Sputnik Planitia, Pluto's gigantic ice glacier, hosts numerous scientific mysteries, including the presence of thousands of elongated pit structures. We examine various attributes of these pit structures in New Horizons data sets, revealing…

The New Horizons spacecraft provided near global observations of Pluto that far exceed the resolution of Earth-based data sets. Most Pluto New Horizons analysis hitherto has focused on the encounter hemisphere of Pluto (i.e., the antiCharon…

The New Horizons spacecraft will achieve a wide range of measurement objectives at the Pluto system, including color and panchromatic maps, 1.25-2.50 micron spectral images for studying surface compositions, and measurements of Pluto's…

The surprising discovery by the Rosetta spacecraft of molecular oxygen (O$_2$) in the coma of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (Bieler et al. 2015) challenged our understanding of the inventory of this volatile species on and inside bodies…

The New Horizons spacecraft, which flew by Pluto on July 14, 2015, revealed the presence of haze in Pluto's atmosphere that were formed by CH4/N2 photochemistry at high altitudes in Pluto's atmosphere, as on Titan and Triton. In order to…

Results are presented from a 3-D Pluto general circulation model (GCM) that includes conductive heating and cooling, non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (non-LTE) heating by methane at 2.3 and 3.3 microns, non-LTE cooling by cooling by…

The deep nitrogen-covered Sputnik Planitia (SP; informal name) basin on Pluto is located very close to the longitude of Pluto's tidal axis[1] and may be an impact feature [2], by analogy with other large basins in the solar system[3,4].…

The presence of N2 in the surface environment of Pluto is critical in creating Pluto's richness of features and processes. Here, we propose that the nitrogen atoms in the N2 observed on Pluto were accreted in that chemical form during the…

Spectral observations of Neptune made in 2019 with the MUSE instrument at the Very Large Telescope in Chile have been analysed to determine the spatial variation of aerosol scattering properties and methane abundance in Neptune's…

During the New Horizons spacecraft's encounter with Pluto, the Alice ultraviolet spectrograph conducted a series of observations that detected emissions from both the interplanetary medium (IPM) and Pluto. In the direction of Pluto, the IPM…

We present spatially resolved ($0.1'' - 1.0''$) radio maps of Neptune taken from the Very Large Array and Atacama Large Submillimeter/Millimeter Array between $2015-2017$. Combined, these observations probe from just below the main methane…

Ocean worlds, or icy bodies in the outer solar system that have or once had subsurface liquid water oceans, are among the most compelling topics of astrobiology. Typically, confirming the existence of a subsurface ocean requires close…

Since the last Pluto volatile transport models were published (Hansen and Paige 1996), we have (i) new stellar occultation data from 2002 and 2006-2012 that have roughly twice the pressure as the discovery occultation of 1988, (ii) new…

We present a reanalysis (using the Minnaert limb-darkening approximation) of visible/near-infrared (0.3 - 2.5 micron) observations of Uranus and Neptune made by several instruments. We find a common model of the vertical aerosol…

Observations of Neptune, made in 2018 using the new Narrow Field Adaptive Optics mode of the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument at the Very Large Telescope (VLT) from 0.48 - 0.93 micron, are analysed here to determine the…

The goal is to determine the composition of Pluto's atmosphere and to constrain the nature of surface-atmosphere interactions. We perform high--resolution spectroscopic observations in the 2.33--2.36 $\mu$m range, using CRIRES at the VLT.…

The methane-nitrogen phase diagram of Prokhvatilov and Yantsevich (1983) indicates that at temperatures relevant to the surfaces of icy dwarf planets like Pluto, two phases contribute to the methane absorptions: nitrogen saturated with…

We estimate the loss of nitrogen from Pluto over its lifetime, including the giant planet instability period, which we term the "Wild Years." We analyze the orbital migration of 53 simulated Plutinos, which are Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs)…

We present spectra of Eris from the MMT 6.5 meter telescope and Red Channel Spectrograph (5700-9800 angstroms; 5 angstroms per pix) on Mt. Hopkins, AZ, and of Pluto from the Steward Observatory 2.3 meter telescope and Boller and Chivens…