Pluto's Moon Charon Hosts Craters and Monster Canyon

While all eyes are on Pluto, NASA’s New Horizons mission is also beaming back intriguing views of the dwarf planet’s largest moon, Charon.

A starkly different color to Pluto, Charon seems to have its own highly complex geology featuring large craters and a spectacular canyon, which is longer and miles deeper than Earth’s Grand Canyon. In short, Charon is shaping up to be the second arena of discovery as New Horizons prepares for close approach to the Pluto system hours from now.

“This is the first clear evidence of faulting and surface disruption on Charon,” said William McKinnon, deputy lead scientist with New Horizon’s Geology and Geophysics investigation at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo. “New Horizons has transformed our view of this distant moon from a nearly featureless ball of ice to a world displaying all kinds of geologic activity.”

The largest chasm looks like a deep scar in the moon’s southern hemisphere and the most prominent crater, measuring approximately 60 miles (a little under 100 kilometers) is seen close to its south pole.

In this observation captured by the mission’s Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) in July 11, bright rays can be seen surrounding the crater, indicating that the impact occurred relatively recently in geological timescales. These rays were formed when an impactor scoured into Charon’s surface, blasting bright ejecta across the darker landscape.

The New Horizons team are particularly interested in the surprising darkness of the crater’s floor according to a press release issued on Sunday. One theory is that when Charon was hit, the impactor exposed darker layers of icy material below the surface. Another possibility is that the material inside the crater is the same material on the surface of the moon, but has taken the form of larger grain sizes, which reflect less light.

Read more at Discovery News