New Horizons Reveals Extremely Large Canyon in Pluto's Moon
Pluto's Moon Charon has a Complex Geology that Scientists Never Expected
The latest image from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft reveals a canyon that is much longer and deeper than Earth's Grand Canyon. Known by its unofficial name Argo Chasma, it is estimated to be 5.5 miles (9 kilometers) deep, and 185 miles (300 kilometers) long. In contrast, the Grand Canyon in Arizona seems measly, measuring at 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) deep and 277 miles (433 kilometers) long.
Argo Chasma
Argo Chasma may have also broken the record for the tallest cliff face in the solar system. The pictures reveal certain places in the canyon where sheer cliffs appear to be 5.5 miles deep. The previous record holder is also found in a moon. Called Verona Rupes, this canyon is located in Miranda, Uranus' moon.
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The image was taken by the LORRI or Long Range Reconnaisance Imager set up in the New Horizons space craft. Each pixel in this image represents 1.45 miles (2.33 kilometers).
New Horizons sent its first high resolution picture of Charon in September 2015. Scientists were surprised at the colorful landscape of the moon, which is covered with landslides, variations in surface-color, canyons and mountains.
New Horizons Reveals Surprises
Using seven on-board instruments, New Horizons revealed surprising things about Pluto and Charon. For one, they didn't expect such a small planet formed 4.5 billion years ago to be so active. Even Pluto's moon revealed tectonic activity and a strange dark polar region.
Jeff Moore, team leader of New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging team, said, "The fact that both Charon and Pluto turned out to be absolutely, over-the-top amazing tells us a lot about the importance of going off and exploring places that no one has ever seen before."
Before New Horizons took detailed pictures of Charon's surface, very little was known about Pluto's moon. According to Alan Stern, New Horizons mission principal investigator, all that was known about Charon was that it was mostly made of ice, darker than Pluto with fewer colors and is about Pluto's mass and size.
A research article published in Science Magazine reports that New Horizons revealed Pluto's and Charon's complex geology. Charon appeared to have had major stretching along the crust through tectonic processes around 4 billion years ago. It is this tectonic activity which formed the large canyon and other canyons found in the moon.
