P54A-01
Color and Composition of Pluto and Its Moons from the New Horizons Mission
Friday, 18 December 2015: 16:00
2007 (Moscone West)
Catherine Olkin1, Dennis Reuter2, S Alan Stern3, Carly Howett1, Alex Harrison Parker1, Kimberly Ennico Smith4, Kelsi N Singer1, William M Grundy5, Harold A Weaver Jr6, Leslie Ann Young1, Richard P Binzel7, Marc W Buie1, Jason Campbell Cook1, Dale P Cruikshank8, Cristina Dalle Ore9, Alissa M Earle10, Donald E Jennings2, Ivan Linscott11, Allen Lunsford2, Joel W Parker1, Silvia Protopapa12, John R Spencer1, Constantine Tsang1 and Anne Verbiscer13, (1)Southwest Research Institute Boulder, Boulder, CO, United States, (2)NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States, (3)Southwest Research Institute Boulder, Dept Space Studies, Boulder, CO, United States, (4)NASA Ames, Moffet Field, CA, United States, (5)Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, AZ, United States, (6)Applied Physics Laboratory Johns Hopkins, Laurel, MD, United States, (7)MIT Rm 54-410, Cambridge, MA, United States, (8)NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, United States, (9)SETI Institute Mountain View, Mountain View, CA, United States, (10)MIT, EAPS, Cambridge, MA, United States, (11)Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States, (12)University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States, (13)University of Virginia Main Campus, Charlottesville, VA, United States
Abstract:
NASA’s New Horizons mission has goals of providing maps of the color and composition of Pluto and its largest moon Charon. When the small moons of Pluto were discovered, the New Horizons science team added investigations on the color and composition of Nix and Hydra and also color of Styx and Kerberos and near-infrared spectra of Kerberos.
Color observations taken by Ralph/MVIC, the Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera have revealed diverse terrain units across Pluto. By constructing an enhanced color composite image of Pluto from the Blue, Red and NIR filter images of Pluto, we can see that the informally named, Tombaugh Regio (the large heart-shaped region on Pluto), is clearly two different colors with a clear demarcation down the center of Tombaugh Regio.
From infrared spectroscopic data taken by Ralph/LEISA, Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array, early analysis has shown that in the less blue region of Tombaugh Regio there is a concentration of CO ice.
This paper will present selected highlights of results from the color and composition investigations of the New Horizons mission.
