J/AJ/162/207ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/162/207doi:10.26093/cds/vizier.51620207CDSStern S.Keeney B.Hoover R.Protopapa S.White O.Grundy W.,Cruikshank D.P.(the New Horizons Team)2022-05-19T08:11:25Z2022-01-26T08:51:36ZCDS support team

CDS, Observatoire de Strasbourg, 11 rue de l'Universite, F-67000 Strasbourg, France

cds-question@unistra.frsolar-systemasteroidsvisible-astronomySputnik Planitia, Pluto's gigantic, volatile ice glacier, hosts numerous scientific mysteries, including the presence of thousands of elongated pit structures. We examine various attributes of these pit structures in New Horizons data sets, revealing their length, aspect ratio, and orientation properties; we also study their reflectivities, colors, and compositions, and compare these attributes to some other relevant regions on Pluto. We then comment on origin mechanisms of the pits and also the fate of the missing volatiles represented by the pits on Sputnik Planitia. From a sample of 317 pits, we find typical length/width ratios of 2-4, with their major axis preferentially oriented approximately north-south. We also find that the floors of large pits in our sample have similar single-scattering albedos and colors to dark material on crater rims and floors (i.e., possible subsurface windows) in Burney basin. We also find that the base of the three pits in our sample, large enough to study with LEISA IR spectroscopy, display both CH_4_ and N_2_ absorption features, as do the dark regions in crater windows in Burney basin. Evidence for a sublimation erosion origin for the pits is supported over both the explosion/ejecta venting and structural collapse alternatives. Finally, we find that the mass lost by the pits on Sputnik Planitia most likely lies condensed elsewhere, on Pluto's surface, relocated there by volatile transport as opposed to removal by escape to space or photochemical conversion.2021AJ....162..207Shttps://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/AJ/162/207CatalogResearchIsServedByTAP VizieR generic servicerelated-toJ/A+A/553/A14 : Pluto's observations between 1997 and 2010 (Beauvalet+, 2013)J/A+A/570/A86 : Pluto astrometry 19yrs observations (Benedetti-Rossi+, 2014)J/AJ/149/22 : Astrometry of Pluto from 1930-1951 observations (Buie+, 2015)J/AJ/152/80 : Astrometry of Pluto and trans-Neptunian objects (Holman+, 2016)J/AJ/159/74 : Disk-resolved photometric properties Pluto (Protopapa+, 2020)https://cds.unistra.fr/vizier-org/licences_vizier.htmlhttps://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/AJ/162/207https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/AJ/162/207http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/AJ/162/207https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/votable?-source=J/AJ/162/207https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/votable?-source=J/AJ/162/207http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/votable?-source=J/AJ/162/207GETtext/xml+votablehttps://tapvizier.cds.unistra.fr/TAPVizieR/tapOpticaldefaultJ/AJ/162/207/table2Catalog of pit propertiesrecnoRecord number assigned by the VizieR team. Should Not be used for identification.meta.recordintPitID[0/331] Pit identifiermeta.id;meta.mainintprimaryLat[-15.4/20] Latitude on Plutodegpos.bodyrc.latdoubleLon[152/193] Longitude on Plutodegpos.bodyrc.longdoubleArea[0.41/60.1] Areakm**2phys.angSizefloatLength[1.07/16.2] Lengthkmsrc.morph.scLengthfloatWidth[0.35/9.82] Widthkmsrc.morph.scLengthfloatAzimuth[-87/83.7] Azimuth (1)deginstr.offsetfloatLORRILORRI Albedos (table4)meta.ref.urlcharJ/AJ/162/207/table4LORRI Albedos of pitsrecnoRecord number assigned by the VizieR team. Should Not be used for identification.meta.recordintID[0/311] Unshadowed region IDobs.fieldintPitID[0/331] Pit identifier (1)meta.id;meta.mainintArea[0.05/14.7] Areakm**2phys.angSizefloatomega[0.43/0.97] Mean LORRI Albedophys.albedofloate_omega[0.01/0.2] Std. Deviation of omegastat.errorfloatn_omega[10/2293] number of unshadowed pixelsmeta.numberintb_omega[0.05/0.9] Minimum Albedophys.albedo;stat.minfloatB_omega[0.73/1] Maximum Albedophys.albedo;stat.maxfloatJ/AJ/162/207/table5Properties of burney comparison regionsrecnoRecord number assigned by the VizieR team. Should Not be used for identification.meta.recordintID[0/55] Burney Comparison Region identifiermeta.id;meta.mainintLat[40.8/52.2] Latitude on Plutodegpos.bodyrc.latdoubleLon[126/142] Longitude on Plutodegpos.bodyrc.longdoubleArea[0.58/18.2] Areakm**2phys.angSizefloatLength[1.45/12.3] Lengthkmsrc.morph.scLengthfloatWidth[0.55/8] Widthkmsrc.morph.scLengthfloatAzimuth[-90/89] Azimuth (1)deginstr.offsetfloatomega[0.53/0.92] Mean LORRI Albedophys.albedofloate_omega[0.03/0.1] Std. Deviation of omegastat.errorfloatn_omega[92/3081] number of unshadowed pixelsmeta.numberintb_omega[0.37/0.82] Minimum Albedophys.albedo;stat.minfloatB_omega[0.68/1] Maximum Albedophys.albedo;stat.maxfloat