Posted on 06/03/2023 11:47:50 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Explanation: A darkened and mysterious north polar region known to some as Mordor Macula caps this premier high-resolution view. The portrait of Charon, Pluto's largest moon, was captured by New Horizons near the spacecraft's closest approach on July 14, 2015. The combined blue, red, and infrared data was processed to enhance colors and follow variations in Charon's surface properties with a resolution of about 2.9 kilometers (1.8 miles). A stunning image of Charon's Pluto-facing hemisphere, it also features a clear view of an apparently moon-girdling belt of fractures and canyons that seems to separate smooth southern plains from varied northern terrain. Charon is 1,214 kilometers (754 miles) across. That's about 1/10th the size of planet Earth but a whopping 1/2 the diameter of Pluto itself, and makes it the largest satellite relative to its parent body in the Solar System. Still, the moon appears as a small bump at about the 1 o'clock position on Pluto's disk in the grainy, negative,telescopic picture inset at upper left. That view was used by James Christy and Robert Harrington at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Flagstaff to discover Charon in June of 1978.
For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.
I disagree with this statement. "(754 miles) across" is about 1/10th the diameter of Earth. It is about 224 million cubic miles in volume while Earth is about 268 trillion cubic miles in volume (volume = 4/3 X Pi X radius^3). Earth has about 1,000 times the volume of this moon and is likely over 1,000 times the mass.
What an amazing photo! Charon appears to have had a violent past. You can see what looks like worn gulches interrupted by craters that have cones of deeper material rising from their centers.
And it was only discovered in 1978.
Star Wars was already in the (recent) past before Charon was discovered!
That’s no moon...
Wow 😯.
Some aliens did a messy oil change?
It has moons.
It has enough gravity to be ROUND.
So why has Pluto been demoted from “Planet”?
I don’t care, it will always be a Planet to me.
Meanwhile here on earth we only get blurry photos of UFO’s and Bigfoot.
Clyde Tombaugh was still alive when Charon was discovered. I heard him speak about 60 years after his discovery of Pluto—he was still going strong and very enthusiastic about astronomy. Discovering the ninth planet was not his only contribution.
Thanks! :-)
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