Thursday, October 1, 2015

Charon just got cooler!


 

Pluto’s largest moon Charon has almost eclipsed its mother planet on being the hot spot in our solar system.  NASA released pictures today of Charon, revealing a ‘colorful and violent’ past.  One item of excitement is a reddish region near the north polar region, informally named Mordor Macula.

The New Horizons spacecraft captured images of mountains, canyons, landslides and more.  Scientists have discovered a huge canyon that stretches more than 1000 miles, across Charon’s entire face and it probably extends to the other side.  It is four times longer than the Grand Canyon and twice as deep in some places.

The smoothness of the moon south of the canyon is evidence of wide-scale resurfacing, possibly due to ‘cryovolcanism’, a cold volcanic activity.  Check out the video below!

New Horizons is still transmitting data and will continue for the next year. 



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