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26 April 2024 |
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On the Provenance of Pluto's Nitrogen (N2) | | Kelsi N. Singer
; S. Alan Stern
; | | Date: |
2 Jun 2015 | | Abstract: | N2 is abundant in Pluto’s atmosphere and on its surface, but the supply is
depleted by prodigious atmospheric escape. We demonstrate that cometary impacts
could not have delivered enough N2 mass to resupply Pluto’s atmospheric escape
over time; thus Pluto’s N2 is likely endogenous, and therefore was either
acquired early in its history or created by chemistry inside/on Pluto. We find
that cratering could excavate a considerable amount of N2 to resupply the
atmosphere against escape if the near-surface N2 reservoir is deep. However, we
find that this process likely falls short of that necessary to resupply the
atmosphere against escape by at least an order of magnitude. We conclude that
either the escape of N2 from Pluto’s atmosphere was on average much lower than
the predictions for the current epoch, or that internal activity could be
necessary to bring N2 to the surface and resupply escape losses. Observations
made by the New Horizons spacecraft in mid-2015 will yield further constraints
on the provenance and evolution of Pluto’s surface and atmospheric N2, and
could reveal evidence for past or present internal activity. | | Source: | arXiv, 1506.0913 | | Services: | Forum | Review | PDF | Favorites | |
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