Newsademic British English edition 260

h a r o n
 
p h o t o g r a p h s
NASA (National Aeronautics and 
Space Administration) has recently 
released some close-up photographs 
of a moon called Charon. It is one of 
Pluto’s five known moons, or satel­
lites. Pluto is a dwarf planet. Charon 
is both its nearest and largest moon.
NASA’s New Horizons un­
manned spacecraft took the pho­
tographs. 
This 
spacecraft 
was 
launched in 2006. It took nine and 
a half years to get to Pluto. Pluto is 
beyond Neptune, which is the

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15th October 2015 
N e w s a d e m ic .co m ™
 - British English edition 
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farthest planet from the Sun. When 
New Horizons reached the dwarf 
planet, it was about 4.8 billion kilo­
metres (three billion miles) from the 
Earth.
Pluto and Charon (NASA)
As it flew past Pluto, New H o­
rizons recorded large amounts of 
data. As well as pictures, this data 
includes information about what 
Pluto is made of, its measurements
and its atmosphere. New Horizons 
is now sailing farther out into the 
Kuiper belt. It has travelled a dis­
tance o f 100 million kilometres (62 
million miles) since its Pluto fly-by 
three months ago. The Kuiper belt 
is a huge band o f thousands o f icy 
space objects. It stretches all the 
way around the Sun. Pluto and sev­
eral other dw arf planets are within 
the Kuiper belt.
Even a small amount o f data 
transmitted 
by 
New 
Horizons 
takes four hours to reach the Earth. 
NASA scientists say it will take 16 
months to receive all the data the 
spacecraft recorded. The Charon 
photographs surprised them. The 
scientists thought that the moon 
might be similar to Pluto. However, 
New Horizons’ images show that it 
is very different.
Pluto is 2,302 kilometres (1,430 
miles) wide. Charon is about half
its size. Charon’s surface has many 
mountains and craters. It also has 
rough and smooth areas. W hat’s 
most noticeable is a system of 
canyons and fractures that stretch 
around the middle o f the moon. 
NASA scientists say it looks as if 
Charon split open in the distant past.
Charon’s canyon system is more 
than 1,600 kilometres (1,000 miles) 
long. Parts are eight kilometres (five 
miles) deep. In comparison, the 
length o f the Grand Canyon, in the 
USA, is 446 kilometres (277 miles). 
Its greatest depth is 1.6 kilometres 
(one mile). The surface o f the south­
ern part o f Charon is smoother, or 
flatter than the north. It also has 
fewer craters. NASA scientists think 
that this part o f the moon has been 
‘resurfaced’. If so, it must be young­
er than the northern part.
The 
scientists 
are 
unsure 
how this resurfacing happened.
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