Image taken by the New Horizons spacecraft of Pluto's largest moon, Charon. This is the first image to show evidence of craters and geological activit

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Image taken by the New Horizons spacecraft of Pluto's largest moon, Charon. This is the first image to show evidence of craters and geological activity on Charon. The dark area at bottom centre of the moon, near the south pole, is an impact crater measuring 96 kilometres across. It is relatively young, having been formed in the last billion years. There is also a dark region of unknown origin in the north polar region. New Horizons launched in January 2006 and has travelled nearly 5 billion kilometres. It will spend 15 months studying Pluto before travelling beyond it to study other objects in the Kuiper Belt. Image obtained on 11th July 2015 by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI).

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Size: 3100px × 2926px
Photo credit: © NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: -, 11, 2000s, 2010s, 2015, 21st, astronomical, astronomy, background, black, century, charon, craters, exploration, geological, geology, horizons, imager, july, long, lorri, minor, moon, planet, range, reconnaissance, solar, space, surface, system, topographical, topography