We’re getting even crisper images of Pluto’s largest moon Charon. NASA just released the first high-resolution photograph of a section of Charon’s surface, zeroing in on a feature that looks like a “mountain in a moat.”
High-res image of Pluto’s moon Charon shows strange depressed mountain
NASA
This image was taken from the New Horizons spacecraft on July 14th at 6:30AM ET, when it was 49,000 miles away from the moon. It depicts an area that’s 200 miles long, filled with craters and a mysterious depressed mountain at the top lefthand corner. “This is a feature that has geologists stunned and stumped,” said Jeff Moore with NASA’s Ames Research Center.
NASA plans to release even more high-resolution images of Charon’s surface in the coming days. The photographs promise to boost our knowledge of the moon’s composition and history. So far, a previous image has already revealed a large smooth region in Charon’s southern hemisphere, which suggests the moon is geologically active.
Update July 16 2:55PM ET: NASA initially released an image in which the surface shot corresponded to the wrong area of Charon. The agency released a corrected image, and the piece has been updated.
Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.
