Charon Red

NASA's New Horizons mission data along with novel laboratory experiments and exospheric modelling has helped scientists to reveal the likely composition of the red cap on Pluto's moon Charon and how it may have formed. The team realistically replicated Charon surface conditions to measure the composition and colour of hydrocarbons produced on Charo...

Combining data obtained from several sources, scientists have managed to unravel the mystery behind the red cap on Pluto's moon Charon and its composition. NASA's interplanetary space probe New Horizons had captured the reddish region on the top of Charon and collected data in 2015.

The reddish polar region on Pluto's largest moon, Charon, is an effect of methane gas escaping from the icy dwarf planet's atmosphere, say scientists who solved the mystery behind the coloured region first spotted by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft last year.

NASA's New Horizons mission data along with novel laboratory experiments and exospheric modelling has helped scientists to reveal the likely composition of the red cap on Pluto's moon Charon and how it may have formed. The team realistically replicated Charon surface conditions to measure the composition and colour of hydrocarbons produced on Charo...

Combining data obtained from several sources, scientists have managed to unravel the mystery behind the red cap on Pluto's moon Charon and its composition. NASA's interplanetary space probe New Horizons had captured the reddish region on the top of Charon and collected data in 2015.

The reddish polar region on Pluto's largest moon, Charon, is an effect of methane gas escaping from the icy dwarf planet's atmosphere, say scientists who solved the mystery behind the coloured region first spotted by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft last year.