Pawan Kumar
A moon near the end of the Solar System.
Researchers have estimated that there may be an ocean beneath the surface of Charon, a moon near the end of the Solar System, in what may be a breakthrough moment. Charon is a component of the Pluto system, which was declassified as a planet more than a decade ago.
In 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft entered the Pluto-Charon system, and subsequent data analysis has revealed that there are geologically active objects rather than the ice spheres that were previously believed to exist there. The Southwest Research Institute team attempted to determine the origin of cryovolcanic flows and a fracture band on Pluto’s big moon Charon.
They discovered that the fractures may have been caused by the beneath frozen ocean that is breaking through the surface. When the moon’s internal water froze, it may have created deep, elongated depressions along its circumference, according to the new model. It was, however, less likely to cause cryovolcanoes to erupt with ice, water, and other substances in the northern hemisphere.
“The combination of geological interpretations and thermal-orbital evolution models suggests that Charon’s subsurface ocean froze over time. When an internal ocean freezes, it expands, causing significant tensions in its frozen shell and pressurising the water beneath. We believed this to be the origin of Charon’s vast canyons and cryovolcanic flows “Dr. Alyssa Rhoden, the paper’s corresponding author, stated in a release.
Geological interpretations and thermal-orbital evolution models suggest that Pluto’s huge moon Charon had subsurface water and potentially an ammonia ocean that finally froze, according to a study published in Science Direct.
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The researchers simulated the formation of fractures in Charon’s ice shell when the ocean beneath it froze. Based on the compositional questions, they modelled oceans of water, ammonia, or a combination of both. When fractures penetrate the entire ice shell and reach the deep ocean, the pressure liquid can be forced through the fractures and erupt onto the surface.
“Either Charon’s ice shell was less than 10 miles (16 km) thick when the flows occurred, as opposed to the more than 60 miles or 100 km indicated, or the surface was not in direct contact with the ocean during the eruption. If Charon’s ice shell had been thin enough to be completely cracked, it would imply significantly more ocean freezing than the canyons observed on Charon’s encounter hemisphere indicate “Rhoden said.
Ocean freezing also predicts a sequence of geologic activity, in which ocean-sourced cryovolcanism terminates before strain-created tectonism, and a more extensive investigation of Charon’s geologic record could assist in determining if such a scenario is plausible.
