The chemistry of Pluto’s moon Charon is being revealed in new detail thanks to additional studies using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
NASA’s New Horizons mission, which flew by the Pluto system in 2015, had already discovered interesting details about Pluto, including the presence of water ice, ammonia-based substances and organic compounds, as well as a mysterious dark spot at its north pole. called Mordor Macula.
The New Horizons mission also detected bright ejecta around the craters, indicating that the material came from below the surface, but the composition of this material remained unclear. Yet.
The chemistry of Pluto’s moon Charon detailed by the Webb Telescope
Infrared observations confirmed the presence of water ice on Charon’s surface and revealed new compounds, including a thin layer of carbon dioxide (CO2). This CO2 is believed to have existed below the surface for billions of years and was brought to the surface by asteroid impacts.
The glowing ejecta around the craters could be formed from this ancient carbon dioxide, .
A world of ongoing chemical processes
More surprisingly, JWST detected the presence of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) on Charon’s surface. Hydrogen peroxide is a molecule similar to water, but with an additional oxygen atom, for bleaching hair or for disinfection. Its presence suggests that Charon’s water ice is undergoing transformations, possibly due to several factors: weak sunlight from that distance, the solar wind (a stream of charged particles coming from the Sun), and even galactic cosmic rays striking the moon’s surface .
These discoveries are not just a frozen, static relic, but a dynamic world with ongoing surface chemical processes influenced by both Pluto and distant cosmic phenomena. This discovery also raises the possibility that other celestial bodies in the Kuiper Belt, the region of the Solar System where Pluto and Charon are located, may be affected in a similar way.
The study, which brings new insights into Charon’s complexity, was published in .
