• A Southwest Research Institute-led team has detected carbon dioxide and hydrogen peroxide for the first time on the frozen surface of Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, using observations from the James Webb Space Telescope. 

• These discoveries add to Charon’s known chemical inventory, previously identified by ground- and space-based observations, that includes water ice, ammonia-bearing species and the organic materials responsible for Charon’s gray and red coloration.

• The team, led by researchers at the Southwest Research Institute, US, said that while ice, ammonia and organic compounds — formed from carbon and hydrogen — have been detected on Charon, this is the first time carbon dioxide and hydrogen peroxide have been detected. 

• They cited limitations in wavelengths of light emitted by instruments used for studying Pluto’s biggest moon.

• When ice is broken down by being bombarded with charged particles like electrons or ions, hydrogen and oxygen atoms are released, which then combine to form hydrogen peroxide — a highly reactive compound, commonly used in bleaches and disinfectants.

• The presence of hydrogen peroxide indicated that the ice-rich surface is changed by UV light from the Sun, along with particles in solar winds and cosmic rays, the researchers said. 

• Hydrogen peroxide forms from oxygen and hydrogen atoms originating from the breakup of water ice due to incoming ions, electrons or photons.

• The extended wavelength range of NASA’s James Webb Telescope allowed the team to study the light scattered from Charon’s surface at wavelengths longer than was previously possible. The study is published in the journal Nature Communications.

Key facts about Pluto and Charon:

• Discovered in 1930, Pluto was long considered our solar system’s ninth planet. But after the discovery of similar worlds deeper in the Kuiper Belt, Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006 by the International Astronomical Union.

• According to the resolution passed then, a dwarf planet is one that has not been able to create a clear orbit for itself, free from debris. 

• Pluto’s orbit, lying in the Kuiper belt region beyond the planet Neptune, was thought to cross with those of other objects.

• Pluto has an equatorial diameter of about 2,377 kilometers. Pluto is about 1/5th the width of Earth. 

• From an average distance of about 5.9 billion kilometers, Pluto is about 39 times farther away than the Earth is from the Sun. From this distance, it takes sunlight 5.5 hours to travel from the Sun to Pluto.

• Pluto has five known moons: Charon, Nix, Hydra, Kerberos, and Styx.

• Charon is about half the size of Pluto itself, making it the largest satellite relative to the planet it orbits in our solar system. Pluto and Charon are often referred to as a “double planet”.

• Pluto’s moons are named for other mythological figures associated with the underworld. Charon is named for the river Styx boatman who ferries souls in the underworld (as well as honoring Charlene, the wife of discoverer James Christy, who was nicknamed Char). The small moon Nix is named for the goddess of darkness and night, who is also the mother of Charon. Hydra is named for the nine-headed serpent that guards the underworld. Kerberos is named after the three-headed dog of Greek mythology (known as Fluffy in the Harry Potter novels). And Styx is named for the mythological river that separates the world of the living from the realm of the dead.

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