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The innermost and largest moon, Charon, was discovered by James Christy on 22 June 1978, nearly half a century after Pluto was discovered. This led to a substantial revision in estimates of Pluto's size, which had previously assumed that the observed mass and reflected light of the system were all attributable to Pluto alone.
Pluto has roughly one-sixth the mass of the Moon, and one-third its volume. Pluto has a moderately eccentric and inclined orbit, ranging from 30 to 49 astronomical units (4.5 to 7.3 billion kilometres; 2.8 to 4.6 billion miles) from the Sun. Light from the Sun takes 5.5 hours to reach Pluto at its orbital distance of 39.5 AU (5.91 billion km; 3 ...
Charon's volume and mass allow calculation of its density, 1.702 ± 0.017 g/cm 3, [13] from which it can be determined that Charon is slightly less dense than Pluto and suggesting a composition of 55% rock to 45% ice (± 5%), whereas Pluto is about 70% rock. The difference is considerably lower than that of most suspected collisional satellites.
Astronomers have for decades tried to figure out how Pluto captured its largest moon. Now, there’s a new theory. Ashley Strickland, CNN. January 10, 2025 at 10:53 AM.
Observations by the James Webb Space Telescope are giving scientists a fuller understanding about the composition and evolution of Pluto's moon Charon, the largest moon orbiting any of our solar ...
The spacecraft collected data on the atmospheres, surfaces, interiors, and environments of Pluto and its moons. It will also study other objects in the Kuiper belt. [51] "By way of comparison, New Horizons gathered 5,000 times as much data at Pluto as Mariner did at the Red Planet." [52]
This series of New Horizons images of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, was taken at 13 different times spanning 6.5 days, starting on April 12 this year and ending on April 18. (Photo credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute)
Hydra orbits the Pluto-Charon barycenter at a distance of 64,738 km (40,226 mi). [10] Hydra is the outermost moon of Pluto, orbiting beyond Kerberos. [11] Similarly to all of Pluto's moons, Hydra's orbit is nearly circular and is coplanar to Charon's orbit; all of Pluto's moons have very low orbital inclinations to Pluto's equator. [11]