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Changes in Pluto’s Atmosphere Based on Stellar Occultation Data from 2017 to 2023

  • Authors: Amanda A. Sickafoose, Michael J. Person, Carlos A. Zuluaga, Amanda S. Bosh, Stephen E. Levine, Tim Brothers, Bastian Knieling, Timothy A. Lister, David J. Osip, Karsten Schindler, Joe Brimacombe, Tim Carruthers, Abigail Colclasure, Anja Genade, Petro Janse van Rensburg, Stephen B. Potter, Patricio Rojo

Amanda A. Sickafoose et al 2026 The Planetary Science Journal 7 .

  • Provider: AAS Journals

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.

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