Absorption Coefficients of the Methane-Nitrogen Binary Ice System: Implications for Pluto
Abstract
Near infrared spectroscopic measurements of Pluto display methane (CH4) ice absorption bands shifted toward shorter wavelengths compared to the central wavelengths of pure CH4 obtained in the laboratory. This shift, described by Schmitt and Quirico (1992), occurs when CH4 is dissolved at low concentrations in a matrix of solid N2, and the magnitude of the shift varies from one CH4 band to another. This is the main argument behind the modeling analysis of Pluto’s spectra available in literature, employing pure CH4 and CH4 diluted at low concentrations in N2. However, the nitrogen-methane binary phase diagram generated from X-ray diffraction studies by Prokhvatilov & Yantsevich (1983) indicates that at temperatures relevant to the surfaces of icy dwarf planets, like Pluto, two phases contribute to the absorptions: methane ice saturated with nitrogen and nitrogen ice saturated with methane. No optical constants are available so far for the latter component, limiting this way the knowledge of the methane-nitrogen mixing ratio across and into the surface of Pluto and other dwarf planets. New infrared absorption coefficient spectra of CH4-I diluted in β-N2 and β-N2 diluted in CH4-I were measured at temperatures between 40 and 90 K, in the wavelength range 0.8-2.5 μm at different mixing ratios. The spectra were derived from transmission measurements of crystals grown from the liquid phase in closed cells. In particular, a systematic study of the changes in CH4:N2 mixtures spectral behavior with mixing ratio is presented for the first time, in order to understand whether the peak frequencies of the CH4-ice bands correlate with the amount of N2-ice. We report a linear trend of the blueshifts of the CH4-ice bands vs CH4 abundance. This trend varies from band to band, while it is fairly constant with temperature. These data are applied to interpret unpublished high dispersion H and K bands spectra of Pluto acquired with the NACO instrument at the ESO VLT on 27 June 2008. Acknowledgments: This work was supported in part by grant number NNX11AM53G from NASA's Outer Planets Research Program.
- Publication:
-
AAS/Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting Abstracts #45
- Pub Date:
- October 2013
- Bibcode:
- 2013DPS....4530303P