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In the lab, scientists have identified a specific wavelength of infrared light absorbed when carbon monoxide and nitrogen molecules meet and vibrate in unison. Individually, carbon monoxide and nitrogen ice each absorb their own distinct wavelengths, but the tandem vibrations of their mixture absorb at a distinct additional wavelength. Now, astronomers using the 8m Gemini South telescope in Chile have recorded this same unique signature on Neptune's largest Triton satellite.
Image Voyager 2 of Triton showing the southern polar region with dark streaks produced by visible geysers on the icy surface. Image credit: NASA / JPL.
In the Earth's atmosphere, carbon monoxide and nitrogen molecules are in the form of gas, not ice. In fact, molecular nitrogen is the dominant gas in the air we breathe and carbon monoxide is a rare contaminant that can be deadly.
On the remote Triton, however, carbon monoxide and nitrogen freeze like ice. They can form their own independent ice cream or condense in the frozen mixture detected in the Gemini data.
This glossy mix could be involved in Triton's iconic geysers, first discovered in images of NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft, in the form of dark streaks on the surface of the icy, distant moon.
"The cold spectral fingerprint we found was quite reasonable, especially since this ice cream combination can be created in the laboratory. It is therefore unprecedented to locate this specific infrared wavelength on another world, "said Dr. Stephen Tegler, senior author, Northeastern University of Arizona.
Voyager 2 captured for the first time the Triton geysers in action in the southern polar region of the Moon in 1989.
Since then, theories have focused on an internal ocean as a possible source of erupting material.
Geysers can also explode when in summer, the Sun heats this thin layer of volatile ice on the surface of Triton, which could eventually lead to the presence of carbon monoxide ice and nitrogen revealed by the Gemini observation.
This ice mixture could also migrate around the Triton surface in response to seasonal variations in sunlight.
"Despite the Sun's distance from the Sun and cold temperatures, low sunlight is enough to cause strong seasonal changes in the surface and atmosphere of Triton," said co-author Henry Roe , Deputy Director of the Gemini Observatory.
"This work demonstrates the power of combining laboratory studies and telescope observations to understand complex planetary processes in extraterrestrial environments so different from what we encounter every day here on Earth."
The results will be published in Astronomical Journal.
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