Charon

Volbeda A, Charon M-H, Piras C, Hatchikian EC, Frey M, Fontecilla-Camps JC (1995) Nature 373 580... 

In August 2006, the International Astronomical Union redefined the term planet and decided that the former ninth planet in the solar system should be referred to as a dwarf planet with the number 134340. The dwarf planet Pluto and its moon, Charon, are the brightest heavenly bodies in the Kuiper belt (Young, 2000). The ratio of the mass of the planet to that of its moon is 11 1, so the two can almost be considered as a double planet system. They are, however, quite disparate in their composition while Pluto consists of about 75% rocky material and 25% ice, Charon probably contains only water ice with a small amount of rocky material. The ice on Pluto is probably made up mainly of N2 ice with some CH4 ice and traces of NH3 ice. The fact that Pluto and Charon are quite similar in some respects may indicate that they have a common origin. Brown and Calvin (2000), as well as others, were able to obtain separate spectra of the dwarf planet and its moon, although the distance between the two is only about 19,000 kilometres. Crystalline water and ammonia ice were identified on Charon it seems likely that ammonia hydrates are present. 

When, many, many million years in the future, our sun expands in its Anal phase to become a red giant, the habitable zone of our solar system will shift by 1-2 AU, to the region where Triton, Pluto/Charon and the Kuiper Belt are found. This zone is referred to as the delayed gratification habitable zone . All the heavenly bodies in this zone contain water and organic material, so that chemical and molecular... 

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Rezzonico, D. Jazbinsek, M. Guarino, A. Kwon, O. Gunter, P., Electro optic Charon polymeric microring modulators, Opt. Exp. 2008, 16, 613 627... 

Charon and Szabo17 demonstrated that chromophore 4 may be produced to a significant extent from a 5-O-substituted derivative of KDO (which does not contain a free diol grouping at C-4-C-5). These authors synthesized 3-deoxy-5-0-methyl-2-octulosonic acid (7 configuration at C-5-C-7, arabino at C-4, unknown) by the Comforth reaction18,19 from 4-0-formyl-2-0-methyl-D-arabinose (see Scheme 4 and Section IV,1). Compound 7 gave a millimolar extinction coefficient of 13 in the TBA assay (as compared to 92 5 for KDO). Based on this result, Charon and Szabo17 formulated for the TBA reaction of 5-0-... 

Compound 75 served as a model for a study of the TBA reactivity of 5-O-substituted KDO derivatives17 (compare Section 11,1). A synthesis of KDO 8-phosphate (2), which occurs in Nature as the product of the KDO 8-phosphate synthetase reaction9 (Scheme 1 compare Section V,2 and 3), was performed by Charon and Szabo.113 2-O-Benzyl-D-... 

Volbeda, A., Charon, M.-H., Piras, C., Hatchikian, E. C., Frey, M. and Fontecilla-Camps, J. C. (1995) Crystal structure of the nickel-iron hydrogenase from Desulfovibrio gigas. Nature (London), 373, 580-7. 

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