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‘Sugar world’ sweetens the Solar System’s remote reaches

The icy body Arrokoth has a sugary coating that gives the body its distinctive red appearance.
A colour composite image of Arrokoth on a black background

The icy body Arrokoth (artificially coloured) might be sugar coated, according to laboratory experiments on the types of ice found on its surface. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/Roman Tkachenko

After visiting Pluto in 2015, NASA’s New Horizons probe continued its lonely voyage through the cold, dark outer reaches of the Solar System. But it was rewarded with its next target — a red, sugary treat.

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Nature 630, 273 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01655-8

References

  1. Zhang, C. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 121, e2320215121 (2024).

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