Endogenically sourced volatiles on Charon and other Kuiper belt objects
Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) have diverse surface compositions, and the New Horizons mission to the Pluto-Charon system allows us to test hypotheses on the origin and evolution of these KBO surfaces. Previous work proposed that Charon’s organic-rich north pole formed from radiolytically processed vola...
Published in: | Nature Communications |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , , |
Format: | Text |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2022
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9363412/ https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-31846-8 |
id |
ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:9363412 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:9363412 2023-05-15T17:39:50+02:00 Endogenically sourced volatiles on Charon and other Kuiper belt objects Menten, Stephanie M. Sori, Michael M. Bramson, Ali M. 2022-08-09 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9363412/ https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-31846-8 en eng Nature Publishing Group UK http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9363412/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-31846-8 © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . CC-BY Nat Commun Article Text 2022 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-31846-8 2022-08-14T00:53:49Z Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) have diverse surface compositions, and the New Horizons mission to the Pluto-Charon system allows us to test hypotheses on the origin and evolution of these KBO surfaces. Previous work proposed that Charon’s organic-rich north pole formed from radiolytically processed volatiles sourced from Pluto’s escaping atmosphere. Here, we show an endogenic source of volatiles from Charon’s interior is plausible. We calculate that cryovolcanic resurfacing released 1.29 × 10(15)–3.47 × 10(15) kg of methane to Charon’s surface from its interior. We modeled volatile transport and found the vast majority of this volcanically released methane migrates to Charon’s poles, with deposition rates sufficient to be processed into the observed organic compounds. Irradiated methane products appear on similarly sized KBOs that do not orbit a Pluto-sized object to draw an escaping atmosphere from, so interior-sourced volatiles could be a common and important process across the Kuiper belt. Text North Pole PubMed Central (PMC) North Pole Nature Communications 13 1 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
PubMed Central (PMC) |
op_collection_id |
ftpubmed |
language |
English |
topic |
Article |
spellingShingle |
Article Menten, Stephanie M. Sori, Michael M. Bramson, Ali M. Endogenically sourced volatiles on Charon and other Kuiper belt objects |
topic_facet |
Article |
description |
Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) have diverse surface compositions, and the New Horizons mission to the Pluto-Charon system allows us to test hypotheses on the origin and evolution of these KBO surfaces. Previous work proposed that Charon’s organic-rich north pole formed from radiolytically processed volatiles sourced from Pluto’s escaping atmosphere. Here, we show an endogenic source of volatiles from Charon’s interior is plausible. We calculate that cryovolcanic resurfacing released 1.29 × 10(15)–3.47 × 10(15) kg of methane to Charon’s surface from its interior. We modeled volatile transport and found the vast majority of this volcanically released methane migrates to Charon’s poles, with deposition rates sufficient to be processed into the observed organic compounds. Irradiated methane products appear on similarly sized KBOs that do not orbit a Pluto-sized object to draw an escaping atmosphere from, so interior-sourced volatiles could be a common and important process across the Kuiper belt. |
format |
Text |
author |
Menten, Stephanie M. Sori, Michael M. Bramson, Ali M. |
author_facet |
Menten, Stephanie M. Sori, Michael M. Bramson, Ali M. |
author_sort |
Menten, Stephanie M. |
title |
Endogenically sourced volatiles on Charon and other Kuiper belt objects |
title_short |
Endogenically sourced volatiles on Charon and other Kuiper belt objects |
title_full |
Endogenically sourced volatiles on Charon and other Kuiper belt objects |
title_fullStr |
Endogenically sourced volatiles on Charon and other Kuiper belt objects |
title_full_unstemmed |
Endogenically sourced volatiles on Charon and other Kuiper belt objects |
title_sort |
endogenically sourced volatiles on charon and other kuiper belt objects |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group UK |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9363412/ https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-31846-8 |
geographic |
North Pole |
geographic_facet |
North Pole |
genre |
North Pole |
genre_facet |
North Pole |
op_source |
Nat Commun |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9363412/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-31846-8 |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-31846-8 |
container_title |
Nature Communications |
container_volume |
13 |
container_issue |
1 |
_version_ |
1766140603529166848 |