Pluto’s Moon Charon mapped

NASA/JPL Image Release

31 July 2015 Astronomy Now
Image: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute.
Click on image for full resolution. Image: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute.

The science team of NASA’s New Horizons mission has produced this global map of Pluto’s largest moon, Charon. The map includes all available resolved images of the surface acquired between 7-14 July 2015, at pixel resolutions ranging from 40 kilometres (24 miles) on the anti-Pluto facing hemisphere (left and right sides of the map), to 400 metres (1,250 feet) per pixel on portions of the Pluto-facing hemisphere – the side facing the New Horizons spacecraft when it flew past the dwarf planet – at map centre. Many additional images now stored on the spacecraft’s digital data recorders are expected to be transmitted “home” in later this year and these will be used to complete the global map. The map is in simple cylindrical projection, with zero longitude (the Pluto-facing direction) in the centre.

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