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

Posted by samzenpus on from the one-piece-of-silver dept.

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.

8 of 77 comments (clear)

  1. Bigger than the Grand Canyon Taller than Everest by Crashmarik · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  2. Re:In SI Units by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    The conversion is fine, but the premise is wrong. Charon's diameter is just 750 miles, or 1207km. The dimensions given in TFS are for Pluto.

  3. Re:Bigger than the Grand Canyon Taller than Everes by dotancohen · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

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  4. Re:What is Pluto? by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Or, Prince style: The dwarf planet formerly known as the ninth planet from the Sun.

    If there are dwarves on that planet, it makes sense that they'd have a prince.

  5. Re:Bigger than the Grand Canyon Taller than Everes by SkyratesPlayer · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually, some mountains (notably Everest) and the deep sea trenches are there because of plate tectonics, not despite it.

  6. Re:What is Pluto? by Woeful+Countenance · · Score: 4, Informative

    It was also formerly the eighth planet from the sun, between 1979 and 1999.

  7. Re:Then what? by thermopile · · Score: 3, Informative
    By using up about 35% of its remaining fuel budget, New Horizons will be able to visit a Kuiper Belt Object. Interestingly, that potential object was spotted just a few weeks after New Horizons launched.

    Anticipated arrival date: January 2019. Be patient...

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  8. Re:What is Pluto? by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 3, Funny

    Pretty hilarious that the summary goes to such lengths to describe Pluto for us, but the next article with drop some acronym like DPITMD*, and everyone but a few people who happen to be in a relevant industry will scratch their heads and think "okay, but wtf is DPITMD?"

    * Describing Pluto In Too Much Detail

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