Tracing seasonal trends across Pluto’s craters: New Horizons Ralph/MVIC results

The July 2015 encounter of the Pluto system by the NASA New Horizons spacecraft has facilitated the study of Pluto’s origin, surface processes, volatile transport cycles, and the energetics and chemistry of its atmosphere in an unprecedented level of detail. Earle et al. (2018b) presented the highest spatial resolution composition maps of Pluto using data from the Ralph/MVIC instrument and provided a global interpretation of the maps. Here we build upon that work and leverage MVIC’s high spatial resolution to study the volatile distribution in and around craters to better understand how small scale topography affects volatile transport. We find that the compositional morphology in and around craters in our study can be divided into four different latitudinal bands, where differences are found for distribution trends in nitrogen, methane, and organic signatures in crater floors, walls, and surrounding slopes. We summarize the compositional characteristics of a “typical” crater in each latitude band, provide some possible explanation for the distribution based on current volatile transport models, and highlight some questions to be addressed by ongoing models. •Use data from New Horizon’s Ralph/MVIC instrument to study volatile distribution.•Leverage high spatial resolution to study how small-scale topography effects volatile transport.•Identify latitudinal trends in volatile distribution in and around craters.