Close-up of Charon’s ‘Mountain in a Moat’

NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute Press Release

17 July 2015 Astronomy Now

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 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).

Related Articles

Observing

Find Pluto close to naked-eye star π Sagittarii (Albaldah) in late June

21 June 2016 Ade Ashford

In the latter part of June, Pluto is best seen low in the southern UK sky around 2am local time and reaches opposition on 7 July. The dwarf planet passes less than 1/20th of a degree south of naked-eye star pi (π) Sagittarii on 26—27 June in the deep twilight of the UK, but Southern Hemisphere observers will have the best views.

News

The heart of Pluto in high-resolution

29 July 2015 Stephen Clark

The icy plains of Pluto resolved by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft stretch as wide as Texas, enveloping mountain ranges and bizarre hilly outcrops in a mosaic revealing one lobe of the distant world’s heart-shaped reservoir of exotic frozen carbon monoxide, nitrogen and methane.

Picture This

Pluto’s close-up, now in colour

12 December 2015 Astronomy Now

This enhanced colour mosaic combines some of the sharpest views of Pluto that NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft obtained during its 14 July flyby, revealing features smaller than half a city block on the dwarf planet’s surface. The wide variety of cratered, mountainous and glacial terrains seen here gives scientists and the public alike a breathtaking, super-high-resolution colour window into Pluto’s geology.