Pluto’s Atmosphere in Plateau Phase Since 2015 from a Stellar Occultation at Devasthal

Abstract

Abstract 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 <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>surf</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:msub> <mml:mo>=</mml:mo> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>12.23</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>−</mml:mo> <mml:mn>0.38</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>+</mml:mo> <mml:mn>0.65</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msubsup> </mml:math> μ bar. 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 pressure decrease reported by independent teams, based on occultations observed in 2018 and 2019 by Young et al. and Arimatsu et al., respectively.