A comparison of two images of the planet Pluto (centre) and its large moon Charon (lower left). The image at right was taken with the Hubble Space Tel

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A comparison of two images of the planet Pluto (centre) and its large moon Charon (lower left). The image at right was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope's faint object camera and shows Pluto and Charon clearly resolved. At left, for comparison, is the best ground-based image ever taken (using the Canada-France Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii) of the Pluto system. Charon's 6-day orbit around Pluto is a circle seen almost edge-on from Earth. At the time of the HST observation, Charon was near its maximum angular separation from Pluto; about arc seconds.

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Size: 4938px × 3196px
Photo credit: © NASA/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: astronomy, charon, cosmology, dwarf, hst, imagery, planet, planetary, pluto, science, space, telescope