1,405 research outputs found
Seeing Double at Neptune's South Pole
Keck near-infrared images of Neptune from UT 26 July 2007 show that the cloud
feature typically observed within a few degrees of Neptune's south pole had
split into a pair of bright spots. A careful determination of disk center
places the cloud centers at -89.07 +/- 0 .06 and -87.84 +/- 0.06 degrees
planetocentric latitude. If modeled as optically thick, perfectly reflecting
layers, we find the pair of features to be constrained to the troposphere, at
pressures greater than 0.4 bar. By UT 28 July 2007, images with comparable
resolution reveal only a single feature near the south pole. The changing
morphology of these circumpolar clouds suggests they may form in a region of
strong convection surrounding a Neptunian south polar vortex.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures; accepted to Icaru
Comparing key compositional indicators in Jupiter with those in extra-solar giant planets
Spectroscopic transiting observations of the atmospheres of hot Jupiters
around other stars, first with Hubble Space Telescope and then Spitzer, opened
the door to compositional studies of exoplanets. The James Webb Space Telescope
will provide such a profound improvement in signal-to-noise ratio that it will
enable detailed analysis of molecular abundances, including but not limited to
determining abundances of all the major carbon- and oxygen-bearing species in
hot Jupiter atmospheres. This will allow determination of the carbon-to-oxygen
ratio, an essential number for planet formation models and a motivating goal of
the Juno mission currently around JupiterComment: Submitted to the Astro2020 Decadal Survey as a white paper; thematic
areas "Planetary Systems" and "Star and Planet Formation
Retrieving Neptune's aerosol properties from Keck OSIRIS observations. I. Dark regions
We present and analyze three-dimensional data cubes of Neptune from the
OSIRIS integral-field spectrograph on the 10-m Keck telescope, from July 2009.
These data have a spatial resolution of 0.035"/pixel and spectral resolution of
R~3800 in the H and K broad bands. We focus our analysis on regions of
Neptune's atmosphere that are near-infrared dark- that is, free of discrete
bright cloud features. We use a forward model coupled to a Markov chain Monte
Carlo algorithm to retrieve properties of Neptune's aerosol structure and
methane profile above ~4 bar in these near-infrared dark regions.
Using a set of high signal-to-noise spectra in a cloud-free band from 2-12N,
we find that Neptune's cloud opacity is dominated by a compact, optically thick
cloud layer with a base near 3 bar and composed of low albedo, forward
scattering particles, with an assumed characteristic size of ~1m. Above
this cloud, we require a vertically extended haze of smaller (~0.1 m)
particles, which reaches from the upper troposphere (~0.6 bar) into the
stratosphere. The particles in this haze are brighter and more isotropically
scattering than those in the deep cloud. When we extend our analysis to 18
cloud-free locations from 20N to 87S, we observe that the optical depth in
aerosols above 0.5 bar decreases by a factor of 2-3 or more at mid- and
high-southern latitudes relative to low latitudes.
We also consider Neptune's methane (CH) profile, and find that our
retrievals indicate a strong preference for a low methane relative humidity at
pressures where methane is expected to condense. Our preferred solution at most
locations is for a methane relative humidity below 10% near the tropopause in
addition to methane depletion down to 2.0-2.5 bar. We tentatively identify a
trend of lower CH columns above 2.5 bar at mid- and high-southern latitudes
over low latitudes.Comment: Published in Icarus: 15 September 201
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