Image Details
Caption: Figure 2.
Pluto’s orientation relative to Earth at the midtime of each occultation along with sky-plane chords for each successful observation. Sky-plane north is up, and east is to the left. The white dots indicate the chord locations, with each point representing one image at the fastest cadence from a given site. These chords show the star positions extrapolated behind Pluto: residual starlight observed during the occultations is refracted around Pluto’s limb. Pluto’s atmosphere as shown here is represented at a fixed size, with gray shading out to 450 km above the surface and within 100 km shaded more opaquely.
© 2026. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.