Observations from one of the most powerful ground-based telescopes have demonstrated the existence of materials that can only be explained by the fact that they were ejected from Charon's ground condenser
Artist's rendering of Charon - Pluto's large moon
Only a few months since the discovery of the ice geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus, it now turns out that this dynamic process is happening all over the solar system. The astronomers believe that they discovered a similar phenomenon in one of the strangest places - geysers erupting from the surface of Pluto's large moon - Charon.
The discovery was made using the Corrective Optics System of the Jetsini Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. The telescope revealed large amounts of ammonia water and sea crystals scattered over the entire surface of the icy moon.
The scientists believe that water mixed with ice blocks under the surface of the particularly cold Charon is pushed upwards due to its heat. This action apparently happens quickly - within a few hours or days. Over time, this process changes the surface of the moon by one millimeter every hundred thousand years. Of course, if this process happens in Charon, it can happen anywhere in the Kuiper belt.
The researchers believe that a dynamic process is taking place and not something that was once ejected because the surface of Charon is apparently not composed of primordial ice - ice that survived the process of the formation of the solar system. Instead, the ice appears crystalline and therefore must have formed recently.
The next step will be to study other objects in the Kuiper belt such as Kava-Var or Orcus - both of which have a diameter greater than 500 kilometers. Of course, the best thing would be to send a spacecraft there to investigate these bodies closely. Indeed, by chance or not, NASA's New Horizon spacecraft is on its way to the Kuiper Belt and will pass by some of these bodies in about a decade.
The Geysers of Enceladus
