The MIT-Williams Program of Occultation Studies: Pluto and Other Objects in the Outer Solar System
A joint MIT-Williams effort has, for over a decade, jointly explored the outer solar system through observing occultations of distant stars by Pluto and objects beyond it. We have monitored changes in Pluto’s atmosphere, which is of particular interest because the results indicate that Pluto’s atmosphere will not have snowed out by the time NASA’s New Horizon’s spacecraft arrives in July 2015. Our most recent result involved NASA’s instrumented plane, SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy), used by our speaker to observe an occultation by Pluto in June 2011, with a resulting analysis of Pluto’s atmosphere and the observed central flash. Simultaneously, Drs. Pasachoff and Babcock as well as Shubhanga Pandey ’14 observed the event from Hawaii. The month before, a similar group plus Matt Hosek ’12 observed a different occultation by Pluto from our 24″ telescope at Williamstown. Our speaker will describe the entire program and the latest results. The continuing project is supported by separate NASA Planetary Astronomy grants to MIT and to Williams College.