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Charon

File:Charon_in_True_Color_-_High-Res.png · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

EntityQ6604· pop 92· linked from 690 articles

Also known as (134340) Pluto I, Pluto I, S/1978 P 1

largest natural satellite of Pluto

AI overview

Charon is the largest moon orbiting the dwarf planet Pluto. It matters because studying it helps scientists understand the composition and history of objects in the distant outer solar system.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Wikidata facts

Instance of
moon of Pluto
Named after
Charon
Parent body
Pluto
Diameter
1212
Radius
603.6
Mass
1.52
Orbital period
6.38723
Image
Pluto system 2006 es.jpg
Show 20 more facts
surface gravity
0.288
time of discovery or invention
1978-06-22
discoverer or inventor
James W. Christy
Commons category
Charon (moon)
topic's main category
Category:Charon (moon)
orbital eccentricity
0.00005
density
1.702
apparent magnitude
16.8
absolute magnitude
1
apoapsis
19598.92
albedo
0.372
semi-major axis of an orbit
19591.4
on focus list of Wikimedia project
Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4
IPA transcription
ˈçaːʁɔn
orbital inclination
112.783
longitude of ascending node
223.046
periapsis
19592.61
flattening
0.5
angular diameter
55
Sources (8)

via Wikidata · CC0

~23 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Charon (/ˈkɛərɒn, -ən/ KAIR-on, -⁠ən or /ˈʃærən/ SHARR-ən), formal designation (134340) Pluto I, is the largest of the five known natural satellites of the dwarf planet Pluto. It has a mean radius of 606 km (377 mi). Charon is a planetary-mass moon and the sixth-largest known trans-Neptunian object after Pluto, Eris, Haumea, Makemake, and Gonggong. It was discovered in 1978 at the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., using photographic plates taken at the United States Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station (NOFS).

With half the diameter and one-eighth the mass of Pluto, Charon is a very large moon in comparison to its parent body. Its gravitational influence is such that the barycenter of the Plutonian system lies outside Pluto, and the two bodies are tidally locked to each other. The dwarf planet systems Pluto–Charon and Eris–Dysnomia and the dwarf planet candidate system Salacia–Actaea are the only known examples of mutual tidal locking in the Solar System, though it is likely that Orcus–Vanth is another.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Charon” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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