Extreme exospheric dynamics at Charon: Implications for the red spot

• Published in: Geophysical Research Letters
• Main Authors: Teolis, B, Raut, U, Kammer, JA, Gimar, CJ, Howett, CJA, Gladstone, GR, Retherford, KD
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2022
• Subjects: polar night
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL097580; https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:fb517ff6-5d0a-4dd2-8131-ed3065b71e7c

Charon's exosphere may exhibit extreme seasonal dynamics, with centuries of quiescence punctuated by short lived (∼4 earth years) exospheric surges near the equinoxes, as spring sunrise bi-annually drives frozen methane off the polar night zones. Charon's pole-centric red spot has been proposed to be the product of Ly-α photolysis of frozen methane into refractory hydrocarbon “tholins”, but the role of exospheric dynamics in the red material's formation has not been investigated. We show with exospheric modeling that methane “polar-swap”, in which exospheric CH4 sublimated from the spring polar zone is rapidly re-frozen onto the autumn hemisphere, deposits ∼30 μm polar frosts too thick for Ly-α light to penetrate. Ethane, the primary methane photoproduct under these conditions, may unlike methane remain frozen decades after polar sunrise under solar wind exposure. Solar wind radiolysis of polar ethane frost synthesizes higher-order refractories that may contribute to the coloration of Charon's polar zones.