The spacecraft “New Horizons” agency NASA transmitted to Earth the best high-resolution color images of Charon – the largest satellite of Pluto. These images have enabled scientists to look into the complicated story of the space object.
Reaching half in diameter of Pluto, Charon is the largest with respect to its companion planet in the solar system. Many scientists of the mission “New Horizons” expected Charon would be uniform celestial body, jagged craters. Instead, they found a landscape with mountains, canyons, landslides, as well as a variety of colors the moon’s surface.
«We believed that the probability of finding such interesting features on the moon’s surface, which is located on the outskirts of our solar system is negligible” – Ross says Beyer, a researcher of the project team. “However, I was delighted by what he saw.”
Pictures Pluto facing Charon hemisphere were obtained unit “New Horizons” during its passage through the Pluto system July 14th. They were transferred to Earth on 21 September. Photos show the details of the fault zone cracks and canyons located north of the equator of the satellite. This vast system of canyons stretches about 1600 kilometers across the surface of Pluto facing hemisphere of the satellite, and probably comes on the back side of Charon. The four times longer than the Grand Canyon, and in some places, and twice as deep it, this system of canyons points to offset the breed in the past.
«It seems that the entire bark of Charon split”, – says John Spencer, scientist of the “New Horizons” of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “Given the size of canyons in relation to Charon, it is very similar to a system of canyons in the vast Valles Marineris on Mars».
The team also found that the plain south of the canyon Charon have fewer large craters compared to regions located to the north of them. This indicates that they are much younger. The smoothness of the Plains is a clear sign of a large-scale renewal of the surface.
Explain the smooth surface can cryovolcanism. “The team is discussing the possibility of freezing in the distant past of the internal ocean water. As a result of changes in its volume could develop a crack, which allowed water lava reach the surface “, – says Paul Schenk, a member of the scientific team mission” New Horizons “at the Institute for Research of satellites and planets in Houston.
The images of Charon with another and high-resolution data on the composition of the satellite scientists have yet to receive. The unit “New Horizons” will continue to transmit digital data recorded on its carriers over the next year. “I guess that soon the story of Charon will take an unexpected turn even more”, – said Hal Weaver, a scientist of the mission of the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University in Laurel, Maryland.
Currently, the unit “New Horizons” is located 5 billion kilometers from Earth and all its systems are working properly.
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