Southwest Research Institute’s manuscript ‘Detection of carbon dioxide and hydrogen peroxide on the stratified surface of Charon with JWST‘ has just been published in Nature Communications.
This research highlights the impressive contributions of graduate student Bereket Mamo, who played a key role in the lab experiments. Working closely with Mamo, Dr. Ujjwal Raut, Mamo’s advisor and second author, integrated laboratory results from CLASSE with JWST observations. Alongside lead author Dr. Silvia Protopapa (SwRI Boulder) and the broader JWST team, they collaborated to discern the state of Charon’s carbon dioxide and demonstrate a radiolytic origin for the detected hydrogen peroxide.
See SwRI press release on this topic.
An SwRI-led team detected carbon dioxide and hydrogen peroxide spectral signatures on Pluto’s largest moon Charon using Webb telescope observations (white), which extend the wavelength coverage of previous New Horizons flyby measurements (pink). The JWST and New Horizons data are consistent in the spectral shape and the strength of the absorption bands at short wavelengths of light; the offset in the absolute amount of scattered light can largely be attributed to differences in viewing geometries. These findings offer clues about the formation and evolution of Charon, shown in the background as imaged by New Horizons. Credit: Courtesy of S. Protopapa/SwRI/NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/JHUAPL