New Horizons
NASA's Mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt
Mission Overview
Mission
New Horizons Mission Phases
The Team
Spacecraft
Spacecraft Systems and Components
Payload
Ground Stations
Data Collection
Where Is New Horizons?
Current Position
Passing the Planets
Journey through the Kuiper Belt
Science Operations Center
Publications
Q&A
The Path to Pluto and Arrokoth
Mission Design
Mission Timeline
Launch
Jupiter Encounter
Pluto Flyby
Arrokoth Flyby
KEM2 Science
KEM2 Overview
KEM2 Overview
Planetary Science
Heliophysics
Astrophysics
Publications
Pluto
Pluto
Why Pluto?
About Clyde Tombaugh
The Pluto System
Pluto
Charon
Moons
Publications
Pluto Perspective
Arrokoth
Arrokoth
About the Kuiper Belt
About Gerard Kuiper
About Arrokoth (2014 MU69)
Exploring the Kuiper Belt
Publications
News Center
News Center
News Archive
Current
Archives
New Horizons on Twitter
Meetings
The PI's Perspective
Current
Archives
Spotlight Presentations
Discovery Stories
Science Perspective
Science Shorts
Media Contacts
Resources
Fact Sheets
Press Kits
Press Conferences
Publications
Glossary
Subscribe to eNews
Galleries
Galleries
Images
Featured Images
Spacecraft Photos
Launch Photos
Event Photos
Raw Images
Arrokoth Encounter
Pluto Encounter
Jupiter Encounter
Podcasts
Videos
Animations
Live Events
Data Movies
Mission Videos
Graphics
Artist Renderings
Exhibit Artwork
Infographics
Posters
Printables
Image/Video Use Policy
Learn
Learn
Interactives
Chat with the Team
Names to Pluto
Eyes on the Solar System
Student Dust Counter
Fun Facts
Activities
Educational Materials
Models
Get Involved
Features
Toolkit
Pluto Flyby Memories
Educator Fellows
Parallax Program
Uranus-Neptune Observations
Resources
Toolkit
Fact Sheets
Press Kits
Press Conferences
Publications
Glossary
Featured Video
Loading the player...
View all videos »
Galleries
Images > Featured Images
Featured Images
Spacecraft Photos
Launch Photos
Event Photos
Click on image to enlarge.
Charon’s Night Side
Release Date:
January 29, 2016
Keywords:
Charon
,
LORRI
After its close approach to Pluto in July 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft snapped this hauntingly beautiful image of the night side of Pluto’s largest moon, Charon.
Only an imager on the far side of Pluto could catch such a view, with a bright, thin sliver of Charon near the lower left illuminated by the sun. Night has fallen over the rest of this side of Charon, yet despite the lack of sunlight over most of the surface, Charon’s nighttime landscapes are still faintly visible by light softly reflected off Pluto, just as “Earthshine” lights up a new moon each month. Charon is 750 miles (1,214 kilometers) in diameter, approximately as wide as Texas.
Scientists on the New Horizons team are using this and similar images to map portions of Charon otherwise not visible during the flyby. This includes Charon’s south pole - toward the top of this image - which entered polar night in 1989 and will not see sunlight again until 2107. Charon’s polar temperatures drop to near absolute zero during this long winter.
This combination of 16 one-second exposures was taken by New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) at 2:30 UT on July 17, 2015, nearly three days after closest approach to Pluto and Charon, from a range of 1.9 million miles (3.1 million kilometers).
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
« Prev
Next »