Graphite Found at Pluto Moon Charon and Dwarf Planet Ceres

When NASA's Dawn spacecraft arrived at Ceres last year to embark on an orbital survey, it found a gray, icy world covered with debris left behind by impacts. Spectral observations of the object, which is both a dwarf planet and an asteroid, revealed evidence of a form of graphite called graphitized carbon on its surface, according to Amanda Hendrix, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona.