This new image of an area on Pluto’s largest moon Charon has a captivating feature — a depression with a peak in the middle, shown here in the upper left corner of the inset. The image shows an area approximately 240 miles (390 kilometres) from top to bottom, including few visible craters. The image was taken at approximately 10:30 UTC (11:30am BST) on 14 July 2015, about 1.5 hours before closest approach to Pluto, from a range of 49,000 miles (79,000 kilometres). Image credits: NASA-JHUAPL-SwRI.This image gives a preview of what the surface of this large moon will look like in future close-ups from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft. This image is heavily compressed; sharper versions are anticipated when the full-fidelity data from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) are returned to Earth.
The rectangle superimposed on the global view of Charon shows the approximate location of this close-up view.
The image was taken at approximately 6:30am EDT on 14 July 2015, about 1.5 hours before closest approach to Pluto, from a range of 49,000 miles (79,000 kilometres).
The long-awaited fly-by of Pluto by the New Horizons spacecraft, on 14 July 2015, was an event 85 years in the making, following Pluto’s discovery by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930. Since then, Pluto has gone from planet to dwarf planet, but despite protestations from the New Horizons team, its reclassification never really changed the mission or the importance of what it would find at Pluto.
The first images from the New Horizons spacecraft since late July will come back to Earth on 5 September, and scientists are salivating over what the new pictures will reveal about Pluto.
Images just sent back to Earth this week of Pluto’s tiny moon tiny Kerberos taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft complete the family portrait of Pluto’s moons. Kerberos has a double-lobed shape suggesting that it could have been formed by the merger of two smaller objects. It also appears to be smaller than scientists expected and has a highly-reflective surface, counter to predictions prior to the Pluto flyby in July.