NASA’s Webb Space Telescope has identified new clues about the surface of Pluto’s largest moon. It detected for the first time traces of carbon dioxide and hydrogen peroxide on Charon's surface. Previous research, including a 2015 NASA flyby, showed that Charon's surface was coated by water ice.
This image provided by NASA shows an enhanced color view of Pluto’s big moon Charon captured by the New Horizons spacecraft, July 14, 2015. in 2015, revealed that the moon’s surface was coated by water ice. But scientists couldn’t sense chemicals lurking at certain infrared wavelengths until the Webb telescope came around to fill in the gaps.
“There’s a lot of fingerprints of chemicals that we otherwise wouldn’t get to see,” said Carly Howett, a New Horizons scientist who was not involved with the new study.Pluto, a dwarf planet, and its moons are in the far fringes of our solar system in a zone known as the Kuiper Belt. Besides water ice, ammonia and organic materials were previously detected on Charon. Both Pluto and Charon are over 3 billion miles from the sun and are likely too chilly to support life.
Scientists think the hydrogen peroxide may have sprung from radiation pinging off water molecules on Charon’s surface. The carbon dioxide might spew to the surface after impacts, said study co-author Silvia Protopapa from the Southwest Research Institute.Helene and other storms dumped a whopping 40 trillion gallons of rain on the SouthThe latest detection is key to studying how Charon came to be and may help scientists tease out the makeup of other faraway moons and planets.
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James Webb Space Telescope deciphers the origins of Pluto's icy moon CharonRobert Lea is a science journalist in the U.K. whose articles have been published in Physics World, New Scientist, Astronomy Magazine, All About Space, Newsweek and ZME Science. He also writes about science communication for Elsevier and the European Journal of Physics. Rob holds a bachelor of science degree in physics and astronomy from the U.K.
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