Pluto and Charon’s UV spectra from IUE to New Horizons

We compare Mid-Ultraviolet (MUV) spectra of Pluto taken over a period of 20 years by the International Ultraviolet Explorer, the HST-Faint Object Spectrograph, and the HST-Cosmic Origins Spectrograph. We extract Pluto-only spectra from the IUE data and associate them with corrected longitudes when necessary. Comparing them with HST spectra provides further evidence of temporal changes in Pluto’s geometric albedo between 2000 and 3200 Å. These various spectra are used to explore the contributions of atmospheric or surface changes to Pluto’s reflectance. We also provide predictions for the Far-Ultraviolet (FUV) surface reflectance and atmospheric emission spectra of Pluto that will be measured by the Alice spectrograph (Stern, S.A. et al. [2008]. Space Sci. Rev. 140, 155–187) during the New Horizons flyby of Pluto in 2015. FUV surface reflectance predictions are also made for Charon, Hydra, and Nix.