The State of Pluto's Bulk Atmosphere at the Time of the New Horizons Encounter

On 29-JUL-2015, our team - plus many critical amateur astronomers - observed a stellar occultation by Pluto from sites in Australia and New Zealand. This event was remarkable for two reasons: it preceded the New Horizons flyby of Pluto by just two weeks, and the occulted star was about 10x brighter than Pluto itself, by far the brightest Pluto occultation event observed to date. The separation of ground sites spanned nearly 900 km with respect to the central chord, allowing a good geometric solution for the shadow path. The lightcurves show some inflection points and broad "fangs" that are characteristic of perturbations in the temperature profile. Preliminary fits show that the temperature profile derived from a 2006 occultation (Young et al. 2008) reproduces the 29-JUN-2015 lightcurves well. Assuming a surface radius of 1187 km for Pluto, we find that the surface pressure is 18 +/- 3 µbar. This pressure indicates that Pluto's surface has not yet started to cool down, despite a decrease in absorbed solar flux of more than 17% since perihelion in 1988. A surface pressure of 18 µbar would correspond to a nitrogen ice surface temperature of 38.0 K.References:Young, E.F., et al. "Vertical Structure in Pluto's Atmosphere from the 2006 June 12 Stellar Occultation," AJ 136 1757-1769 (2008)