Abstract
Pluto's tenuous nitrogen atmosphere was first detected by the imprint left on the light curve of a star that was occulted by the planet in 1985 (ref. 1), and studied more extensively during a second occultation event in 1988 (refs 2–6). These events are, however, quite rare and Pluto's atmosphere remains poorly understood, as in particular the planet has not yet been visited by a spacecraft. Here we report data from the first occultations by Pluto since 1988. We find that, during the intervening 14 years, there seems to have been a doubling of the atmospheric pressure, a probable seasonal effect on Pluto.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the Conseil Scientifique of Paris Observatory and the Programme National de Planétologie for supporting part of the observations of the P126 event in South America. We are grateful to C. Angeli, A. Bruch and D. Lazzaro, who made possible the observational campaign in Brazil, and to W. B. Hubbard for constructive comments.
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Sicardy, B., Widemann, T., Lellouch, E. et al. Large changes in Pluto's atmosphere as revealed by recent stellar occultations. Nature 424, 168–170 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01766
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01766
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