NASA’s Webb Space Telescope has unveiled intriguing new details about the surface of Charon, Pluto’s largest moon. For the first time, traces of carbon dioxide and hydrogen peroxide have been identified on Charon, a celestial body roughly half the size of Pluto.
Previous investigations, such as the 2015 flyby by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, had mapped out a surface blanketed in water ice. However, the chemicals hidden at specific infrared wavelengths remained undetected until the sophisticated Webb telescope provided the necessary insights.
“There’s a lot of fingerprints of chemicals that we otherwise wouldn’t get to see,” remarked Carly Howett, a New Horizons scientist not involved in the recent study.
The findings were published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.
Situated in the remote Kuiper Belt, Pluto and its moons rest in one of the solar system’s most distant regions. Charon, along with its celestial companion Pluto, is located over 3 billion miles from the sun, making the environment exceedingly frigid and inhospitable to life. Prior research had also identified ammonia and organic compounds on Charon’s icy surface.
Scientists speculate that hydrogen peroxide on Charon may form due to radiation interacting with water molecules on the moon’s exterior. Carbon dioxide, on the other hand, could be surfacing as a result of impact events, according to study co-author Silvia Protopapa from the Southwest Research Institute.
This groundbreaking detection offers vital clues about Charon’s origins and composition. It may also pave the way for a better understanding of the makeup of other distant moons and planets in the far reaches of our solar system.
