Charon


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Charon

(kair -ŏn, shar -ŏn) The only confirmed satellite of Pluto, discovered in 1978 by James W. Christy of the US Naval Observatory. The average distance between Charon and Pluto is less than 20 000 km. Charon is in synchronous rotation with Pluto (orbital period 6.39 days) and with a diameter of about 1190 km is more than half its size. It is, however, only one-tenth of Pluto's mass. See Table 2, backmatter.
Collins Dictionary of Astronomy © Market House Books Ltd, 2006

Charon

[′ka·rən]
(astronomy)
The only known satellite of Pluto, with an orbital period of 6.387 days, distance from Pluto of approximately 19,600 kilometers, and diameter of approximately 1250 kilometers.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Charon

ferries dead across the river Styx. [Gk. and Rom. Myth.: Hall, 147; Ital. Lit.: Inferno.]
See: Ferrying
Allusions—Cultural, Literary, Biblical, and Historical: A Thematic Dictionary. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
References in periodicals archive ?
Rita Charon, the founder of the movement in the United States, promotes a vision of narrative medicine as "medicine practiced with these narrative skills of recognizing, absorbing, interpreting, and being moved by the stories of illness" (Charon 4).
Narrative Practices in Medicine and Therapy: Philosophical Reflections
Now two analyses conclude that Sputnik Planitia lies almost directly opposite Charon not by accident but instead because the feature literally dragged the crust of Pluto around to the current arrangement.
Sputnik Planitia made Pluto's "heart" wander
Charon and Charol were the image of typical American babies - cute, brown-haired, with large brown eyes.
Amerasian twins in Pampanga reconnect with lost dad
Planetary scientist Will Grundy of Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz., and colleagues used images of Charon taken by the New Horizons spacecraft and computational analysis to demonstrate that methane from Pluto is a reasonable culprit for Charon's rust-colored pole (shown here in a mosaic of images).
Pluto probably colored Charon's north pole
The Pluto satellite system [8] has five moons, Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra, which are nearly in a 1:3:4:5:6 resonance condition!
Update on Pluto and its 5 moons obeying the quantization of angular momentum per unit mass constraint of quantum celestial mechanics
NASA scientists highlighted huge troughs and canyon's on Charon's surface - something Mr Hardy drew himself all those years ago.
Artist's vision of Pluto proves out of this world
LIFT One of the planet's five moons, Charon, has a crater deeper than the Grand Canyon.
Water in them thar hills
And Pluto's largest moon, Charon, has a canyon estimated to be four to six miles (6.4km-9.7km) deep, plus a range of cliffs and troughs stretching about 600 miles (966km) from left to right.
Pluto pictures send scientists over the moon
The spacecraft sent back the first close-up images, including icy mountains on Pluto and a new, crisp view of its largest moon, Charon.
NASA spacecraft reveals multiple discoveries
Nasa has already released several shots of Pluto which they hope will help unravel mysteries about it and its largest moon, Charon.
SPACE RACE; Fastest ever interstellar craft to pass dwarf planet Pluto
As well as Pluto, New Horizons will observe the five known moons which orbit it - called Charon, Hydra, Nix, Kerberos and Styx.
Pluto flyby broadens our space horizons

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