Charon was discovered in 1978, and is known as the largest moon of Pluto. Now, this distant satellite is being seen as never before in stunning images from the New Horizons spacecraft, which passed by the system in 2015. This largest moon of Pluto is about 750 miles in diameter, roughly the same size as the state of Texas, and half the size of its companion planet.
The stunning image, showing Charon as just a sliver of light, was snapped on July 17, 2015, three days after the closest approach of the spacecraft to the icy dwarf. The fragile-looking edge of the frozen satellite is illuminated by the distant sun, creating a haunting image. The image was created from merging 16 images from the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), each exposed for 1 second from a distance of 1.9 million miles from the surface of the frigid world.
The south pole of Charon, seen at the top of the photograph, entered polar nighttime in 1989, and dawn will not break there until the year 2107. During night on Pluto, temperatures can drop to near absolute zero.
"Night has fallen over the rest of this side of Charon, yet despite the lack of sunlight over most of the surface, Charon's nighttime landscapes are still faintly visible by light softly reflected off Pluto, just as 'Earthshine' lights up a new moon each month," NASA officials report in a press release introducing the unique image.
Images like this latest release from NASA can assist astronomers to develop a map of Charon, as they show some detail not visible in other photographs.
Although the main target of the mission was Pluto and its network of satellites, the spacecraft will continue on exploring the body of objects known as the Kuiper Belt, orbiting beyond the realm of Pluto.
"The mission was designed to explore not just the Pluto-Charon system, but Pluto-Charon as well as multiple Kuiper Belt Objects," the New Horizons team reports.
Next, New Horizons could be headed to 2014 MU69, an object which revolves around the sun approximately 1 billion miles beyond Pluto.
