NASA's New Horizons Focuses On Pluto's Largest Moon Charon

MarkWhittington writes: New Horizons has already discovered much of what was previously unknown about Pluto, the dwarf planet that is the former ninth planet from the sun. NASA reported that the space probe has also uncovered some of the secrets of Pluto's largest moon, Charon. It has found indications of impact craters on the moon's gray surface as well as a chasm that seems to be bigger than the Grand Canyon on Earth. Charon has a diameter of just 1440 miles. By contrast, Earth has a diameter of 7918 miles.

Comments

Re:Bigger than the Grand Canyon Taller than Everes

[dotancohen]

Really it's impressive before you think about it. The Earth has active plate tectonics and ongoing weathering. It should come as no surprise that planets which don't have more pronounced features.

Also, the Earth has much higher gravity. Surface elevation gradients are much more pronounced on bodies with lower surface gravity, even though they have higher tidal gradients. Mars' largest volcano, Mons Olympus, could not stand on Earth due to the 3x higher gravity here.