Mission: Ames

The afternoon session of Jul 25^th of the Pluto Science Conference started with John Stansberry’s (STScI) talk entitled “Interactions between Pluto’s Surface and Atmosphere.” He stated, “The similarities between Pluto and Triton are remarkable.”

The main properties of Pluto and Neptune’s moon Triton are summarized above.

Pluto has a volatile-rich atmosphere (N₂, CO, CH₄) and interacts with the surface to bring about mass and energy exchange. N₂ dominates the surface ices and the atmosphere. N₂ is also globally much at the same temperature mainly due to N₂’s large latent heat of sublimation that balances out changes in temperature. To probe deeper at surface-atmosphere interactions, he looked specifically at the methane to nitrogen mixing ratio (abundance of one component of a mixture relative to that of all other components). But there are many open mysteries about surface-atmosphere interactions.

Overabundance of Methane Mystery.  Pluto’s upper atmosphere has X_CH₄ ~0.5% (X_CH₄ is the methane mixing ratio) based on occultation measurements. Infrared spectral measurements (Jason Cook et al 2007) from the lower atmosphere derive a much higher X_CH₄ ~ 4%. Surfaces models for the N₂+CH₄ ice predict  X_CH₄ ~0.5%. So in order to explain the overabundance of methane in Pluto’s lower atmosphere, two models were introduced to help provide additional sources of methane. This is an active area of study.

Changing Atmospheric Structure. Stepping through the light curve changes shown by Mike Pearson (see previous blog entry) there is something changing the structure of the atmosphere at ~1200 km. Comparing 1988 (equinox) and 2006 (N mid-Spring; Northern ) could be explained partially by geometry changes. Not all the changes are understood.

Pluto’s lower atmosphere is a mystery. We can probe down to the stratosphere with occultation measurements (scale height 50 km). So below 50km they need to resort to models.

Other influences on surface-atmosphere interaction included effects due to topography and winds. Winds have been observed on Triton (Hansen et al 1990).

Predictions for New Horizons. X_CH₄ will be ~0.5% in stratosphere, a few % in troposphere. For the atmosphere structure he predicts r_tropopause = 1185 km, h_tropopause = 10km, r_atmosphere_base = 1200km, weak inversion, and bottom of atmosphere at r=1175 km, pressure at surface > 15 microbar. Winds will be Triton-like. A bright north polar cap. Potentially morning frosts.

Bonnie Buratti (JPL) presented a talk on “Pluto’s Light Curve over Time as an Indication of Seasonal Volatile Transport.” They are looking at historical light curves, plus new ones and fit with a fixed frost model. Changes in light curves tell you about the albedo (reflectance) of the surface. You do need to do a correction to phase angle because of Pluto’s high obliquity. They do find the data over 2012-2013 consistent with a constant frost model. She showed the data of long-term monitoring of Triton and it indicated a volatile change and they got HST imaging data which when compared with the Voyager fly-by they did see that areas of high albedo got dark and others got brighter, supporting their interpretation of the light curve approach. They really need to get a good light curve prior to New Horizons’ 2015 fly-by encounter.

Erin George (University of Colorado), working with Marc Buie (SwRI) in “Pluto Light Curve in 2010,” described her work in analyzing data from Lowell Observatory over 2007-2013. The challenge had been to find stars to use as relative flux calibrators that were well separated. They also used a technique to remove the template of background stars (eliminate field confusion).

Marc Buie (SwRI) next took us on a tour of “Seasonal Variations on the Surface of Pluto.” He reports on visible (B & V filters)  photometry from data taken with photographic plate, photoelectric detectors, and CCDs from 1954-2010. All the measurements are of “Pluto+Charon” as the two bodies are not resolved from the ground for the majority of this data (large pixels). He showed the trend of the light curve which indicates that “something happened in 1992” (he hypothesizes it occurred very fast) to change the “color” of Pluto because the light curves in B & V passbands deviate. He’s working towards removing Charon from the data using a model for its brightness from his HST data.

Leslie Young (SwRI) presented a talk on “Modeling Pluto’s Diurnal and Seasonal 3-Dimensional Volatile Transport with VT3D. ” She asks, “Why should we care about volatile transport?” Three key reasons: (1) Mobile volatiles control the surface appearance (albedo, composition), (2) Volatile transport depends on the hidden subsurface (thermal properties, depth of volatile deposits), and (3) Volatile transport models can predict atmospheric behavior at other times (escape rates, atmospheric chemistry, winds).

Her new code, VT3D, uses physics from standard volatile transport models (Hansen &  Paige, Spencer & Moore). She has been validating it against other codes. Types of parameters that she investigated in her code are emissivities, thermal inertia, albedo, and nitrogen abundances. She found her results clumped into three categories, atmospheres characterized by: (1) Permanent Northern Volatiles, (2) Exchange with Pressure Plateau, and (3) Exchange with Early Collapse.

A description of her model can be found in L. Young (2013) http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.7778.

Her model fails to predict a bright south pole seen in the 1990-1994. But then she counters, could that be possible because it’s covered with bright CH₄ frost?

Three classes of atmosphere models from Leslie Young (2013). The graphs are the surface albedo and the pressure at  1175km in u=microbars vs. time. The time runs from 1866 to 2116, a full Pluto year about the Sun. The seasons on Pluto are shown with the vertical lines and the equinox in 1990 is highlight with the circle.

To learn more about Pluto’s seasons check out this blog from the Planetary Society http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2013/05021212-plutos-seasons-new-horizons.html.

Candy Hansen (PSI) described her model in her talk entitled “Pluto’s Climate Modeled with  New Observational Constraints.” She described her model, HP96, named after Candy Hansen and her collaborator Dave Paige, which was coded in 1996. She showed an output of the model for Pluto from 1000 to 2100 AD, over a good four Pluto-orbits about the sun. The model now has been updated to address new knowledge learned about the Pluto system.  To derive solutions that do not have a zonal band (an observable characterized by sharing a range of latitude, appearing as a ‘band’), eliminates high thermal inertia cases, cold frosts and large abundances of N₂. The model does meet constraints from the observed albedo. She does not include an atmosphere in her model, so she is excluding wind and other atmosphere layer issues. After seeing the data from the May 2013 occultation presented at this meeting on Tuesday made her change her models and she presented a true “hot off the press” new result today. Predictions for New Horizons. 2.4 Pascals at the surface at the time of the New Horizons fly-by.

As a closing comment during the discussion session, Rick Binzel is hopeful that Charon-illuminated image of Pluto’s south pole during the New Horizons fly by will be a key to helping understand what may be going on at Pluto’s south pole!

A nice summary of seasons of Pluto. Since the 1950s we are seeing more of Pluto’s northern hemisphere. We are in Pluto’s northern spring time right now.

Laurence Trafton (University of Texas) gave a talk on  “Driving Seasonal Sublimation and Deposition on Pluto-Uncertainties in Evaluating the Vapor Pressure.”  Pluto’s atmosphere is supported by the vapor pressure of its surface ice.  For most models, N₂, CH₄, and CO are assumed to exist solely in solid solution on Pluto’s surface, and are well mixed in atmosphere. However, this did not explain the mystery of Pluto’s elevated atmosphere CH₄ amounts (see above talk by Stansberry). Two models were suggested: “Detailed balancing model” (DBM) (Trafton 1990) and the “Hot CH₄ Patch Model” (Stansberry et al 1996).  The latter only needs 1-3% of Pluto’s surface to have this extra source of CH₄. Neither model can explain widespread pure CH₄ ice hypothesized to be on Pluto’s surface. He is in need of lab experiments to establish vapor pressures for the saturated areas of the phase diagram.

Tim Michaels (SETI) spoke about “Global Surface Atmosphere Interactions on Pluto. ” He is using the OLAM (Ocean Land Atmosphere Model, Wakko and Avissar, 2008) model. He is using the Northern summer in 21^st century convention (which is the IAU/Ecliptic North coordinate system). Their approach stats with a simple surface nitrogen ice model (no methane). When run for 1990 and 2015, they show distinctly different trends. Next steps are to add albedo distribution, methane cycle, and gravity changes. This is a rich atmosphere-surface system.

Kevin Baines (University of Wisconsin-Madison) spoke about “Chemistry in Pluto’s Atmosphere and Surface: Predictions of Trace Aerosol and Surface Composition, and a Potential Geologic Chronometer.” There are many sources that drive atmosphere surface chemistry and albedo. For example, volatile transport dominates on days, months, and year timescales. There is UV photochemistry (decade timescale) in this rich atmosphere. Hydrocarbons could be raining out 1mm every 50,000 years. Solar wind and accretion activities (impacts, dust from satellites or KBOs) occur in 1Myr timescales. So, he asked, “What would Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCR) do?“ The types of products by irradiation from CGRs include CH₄, C_nH_2n+2, C₆H₁₀, NH₃, HCN, etc. over 5-20 Myr. And he proposes they may be viewable by darkening on airless KBOs.

Vladimir Krasnopolsky spoke on “Pluto’s Photochemistry:  Comparison with Titan and Triton.” There are three bodies with N2/CH4 atmospheres in the solar system: Titan (moon of Saturn), Triton (moon of Neptune), and Pluto. He proposes that Titan is a better analog to Pluto rather than Triton. He presented the main results of his Pluto Model (Krasnopolsky & Cruikshank 1999). He observed Pluto with HST in the UV 180-256nm and was able to fit molecular species predicted by his model and saw no albedo changes from his predictions (Krasnopolsky 2001). New Horizons data will provide useful information to update their photochemical model.

Francois Forget (CNRS, Paris, France) closed the day with “3D Modeling of the Methane Cycle on Pluto). He presented the LMD Pluto Global climate model. Their model does include the methane cycle, but they are neglecting microphysics of N2-CH4. They assume the terrain description of Pluto from Lellouch et al 2000 (areas of N2 Ice, CH4-rich areas and dark albedo areas due to tholins). They ran the model starting from 1988 and the model has a resolution of 170km. The model predicts an observable X_CH4 of 0.35% and this in the agreement of the ~0.5% from observational data by Lellouch et al (2011). The models predict methane cloud formation at the pole and that could be matching observed data from J. Cook who understanding his methane detection comes form cold parts of the atmosphere. He presented a model for cloud formation for 2015 and clouds do appear in the low, colder parts of the atmosphere. Their model will be made available to the community to use. They do not have a cold troposphere in their model.

Prediction for New Horizons. More CH4 ice deposits at the summer pole in 2015 than in 2010.

Who’d have known that that little cold world out there in deep, dark space, would have such a fascinating trip around the Sun? Data from New Horizons from its July 2015 fly-by of the Pluto System will literally confirm or refute all of these predictions. Then the models can be updated to reflect what summer will be like on Pluto in 2240.

This entry is a summary of talks presented at the Interiors session July 24^th, 2013, during the Pluto Science Conference in Laurel, MD being held this week July 22-26, 2013.

Christophe Sotin (JPL) began the session with a talk entitled “Processes involved in the evolution of Pluto’s interior Structure.” He started his talk with a comparison of model of the interiors of Ceres, Callisto, Enceladus, Pluto (McCord & Sotin, 2005; McKinnon & Mueller, 1986; and Simonelli & Reynolds 1989). More recent models propose the existence of a liquid layer between an icy surface and a rocky core (Hussman et al 2006). This layer of liquid changes the way heat is transferred to the ice crust. If liquid methane could form at the base of the ice layer, forming a “sub surface ocean”, it would react with water and form stable methane clathrates. The presence and thickness of the “clathrate layer” affects the thickness of the ice crust above it.

Conclusions. In their interior models, minor components (e.g. NH₃) play important roles in both the characteristics (e.g. thickness) and dynamics of the ice crust. They need laboratory experiments to study the relative stability of the clathrate hydrates.  Hydrated silicates (e.g. antigorite) are likely to be the make-up of the Pluto core.  It will undergo dehydration some 100 Myrs to Gyrs after accretion. Convection within the core. The presence of a subsurface ocean depends on the presence of minor components.

The term clathrate is used to describe a structure that consisting of a lattice that traps or contains molecules.

Francis Nimmo (UC Santa Cruz) followed to provide some suggestions of surface observational evidence to probe the “Interiors of Pluto and Charon.”

Shape is Important. Shape tells us whether a body responds like a fluid. If the body behaves like a fluid (i.e., behaves hydrostatically), you can compute the moment of inertia. This, in turn can tells us something about the interior (i.e., is it differentiated or not). There is a caveat that differentiation can also occur due to radioactive decay. Differentiation happens when ice melts, so it tells us about thermal evolution.

Comparative study of other bodies in the outer solar system and what we know about their interiors.

Evolution of Shapes. Early on, Pluto & Charon are rotating quickly, and are distorted. Pluto and Charon change shapes in the first few to 100 Myr if fluid or elastic, respectively, as their spin rate slows down and Charon moves outward. The spin rates influence their shapes.

What leads to Oceans? A conductive (no convection) ice shell is required to make an ocean (Desch et al 2009). This shell basically lets the heat out from the core. This heating then melts the bottom of the ice shell creating an ocean. The presence of an ocean changes the stress history. In the creation of an ocean, you are replacing low-density ice with higher density water and this introduces compression stresses. If you see things like the Tyre crater on Jupiter’s moon Europa, a multi-ring impact that implies there was an ocean. Whether or not an ocean is present has important astrobiology & geophysics consequences. If you introduce an ocean, you never have a fossil bulge. If you do not have an ocean, you could get a fossil bulge.

A fossil bulge is a bulge that froze into shape before the satellite synchronized its rotation.

Martin Paetzold (Universitat zu Koln, Germany) spoke about “Mass Determination of Pluto and Charon from NH’s REX Radio Science Observation.” During the fly-by, Pluto will perturb the New Horizons spacecraft velocity just slightly and this will be recorded as a tiny Doppler shift of the X-band (8.4 GHz) radio carrier frequency. This information will be used to measure the mass, or more specifically, the product GM (universal gravity constant times the mass), of Pluto.  There are two different ways to obtain this data during the New Horizons mission: (1) Using two-way ranging a week before the encounter and week after the encounter, and (2) During the encounter, the REX uplink instrument (operating at 7.1 GHz) will have a series of measurements during the days around closest approach. They hope to obtain 0.15% accuracy for the first method and 0.04% for the second method. The best results utilize both methods potentially deriving an estimate of Pluto & Charon masses with an accuracy of 0.01%. They are currently looking at the small forces file, which is the measure of the attitude performance during thruster firing.

James Roberts (JHU/APL) spoke about “Tidal Constraints on the Interiors of Pluto and Charon.” Thermal evolution of Pluto & Charon is a key question for scientists to answer. But thermal models are dependent on interior structure. At present we do not know whether Pluto or Charon are homogeneous (i.e. same material throughout) or differentiated (split into a core and crust, or maybe core, subsurface ocean and crust). Typical methods used to probe interiors are Kepler’s 3^rd Law, Bulk density, Moment of Inertia, Gravity, Magnetism, Radar, Seismology, Tides. For New Horizons, as the fly-by is not that close, Gravity is not a viable method; the lack of a magnetometer aboard rules out Magnetism, and Seismology requires the spacecraft to land, also not possible. He described their approach  that will use Shape Modeling to measure a Tidal Bulge. Both Pluto and Charon may each raise a tidal bulge on the other. He cautioned that we may not be able to determined the existence of an ocean using a shape model.

Steve Desch (Arizona State University) spoke on “Using Charon’s Density to Constrain Models of the Formation of the Pluto System.” The unique Pluto-Charon system has been modeled as arising from the impact of two large Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs). This had been presented on July 23^rd by Robin Canup. Steve Desch’s model takes two differentiated KBO bodies (but they must have a thick crust) in a disk and collides them. Parts from the bodies’ inner core, plus some ice, forms Pluto and the outer icy mantles form Charon & the other moons. He addressed that the initial differentiated KBOs with r=600-1200 km could exist (Desch et al 2009, Rubin et al 2013). The outcomes of this model create a dense Charon (density= 1.63 g/cm³) because Charon would have been formed from the outer regions of the initial KBOs, and those objects are characterized with thick crusts.  This is the alternative model that was not preferred by Robin Canup in her talk yesterday. This remains an active area of study.

Wrapping up this 3^rd day of a dynamic conference we learned that we still have a lot more questions about the formation and the interior or Pluto, Charon or any of these icy bodies in the Outer Solar System. New Horizons will indeed bring an revolutionary dataset to allow to direct investigation of surface features, overall shapes, masses, and orbital dynamics, all which will constrain models of what these bodies are made of and how they formed.