7 Stunning Pluto Images from NASA

#3 Charon: Battered and Cracked

NASA reports that the image below combines blue, red and infrared images taken by the spacecraft’s Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera (MVIC); the colors are processed to best highlight the variation of surface properties across Charon:

nh-charon-neutral-bright-release

The surface of Pluto’s moon, which is the largest moon relative to its planet in the solar system, is pockmarked with craters, which scientists expected, but also shows mountains, valleys, and an incredibly long canyon that appears to stretch around the entire circumference the satellite.  NASA’s astounding article on these features says:

“We thought the probability of seeing such interesting features on this satellite of a world at the far edge of our solar system was low,” said Ross Beyer, an affiliate of the New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging (GGI) team from the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, “but I couldn’t be more delighted with what we see.”

High-resolution images of the Pluto-facing hemisphere of Charon, taken by New Horizons as the spacecraft sped through the Pluto system on July 14 and transmitted to Earth on Sept. 21, reveal details of a belt of fractures and canyons just north of the moon’s equator.  This great canyon system stretches more than 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) across the entire face of Charon and likely around onto Charon’s far side. Four times as long as the Grand Canyon, and twice as deep in places, these faults and canyons indicate a titanic geological upheaval in Charon’s past.

“It looks like the entire crust of Charon has been split open,” said John Spencer, deputy lead for GGI at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “With respect to its size relative to Charon, this feature is much like the vast Valles Marineris canyon system on Mars.”

BONUS: NASA has also created this mesmerizing flyover video of Charon from the New Horizons images:

Next, “better together,” Pluto and Charon share the spotlight…

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