Charon’s Mountains Reveal Moon Once Spun 10x Faster
Researchers from UCLA have used computer simulations to determine that Pluto's moon, Charon, likely rotated ten times faster in its early history. The study analyzed surface fault patterns to understand the moon's despinning process.
Why it matters
Understanding the evolution of Charon provides a testbed for studying the formation and geological history of other icy moons in the outer solar system.
Pluto’s moon, Charon, is one of the most unexplored (and arguably underappreciated) planetary objects in the entire solar system. This is primarily because it’s only been visited once by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft during its famous Pluto flyby in July 2015. Despite this quick encounter, New Horizons beamed back troves of data regarding Charon that scientists continue to pour over with the goal of gaining insight into Charon’s formation and evolution. This is because Charon is the largest moon compared to its parent body in the solar system, noted by it being half of Pluto’s diameter and one-eighth of Pluto’s mass.
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