Evropská jižní observatoř

Kategorie: Sluneční soustava, Zpět na celou fotogalerii.

Popis (v anglickém jazyce):

This image of Pluto and its moon, Charon was taken by the European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera on February 21, 1994, when the Pluto was 4,400 million kilometres from the Earth; or nearly 30 times the separation between the Earth and the Sun.

The HST corrected optics show the two objects as clearly separate and sharp disks. This now allows astronomers to measure directly (to within about 1 percent) Pluto's diameter of 2320 kilometres and Charon's diameter of 1270 kilometres.

The HST observations show that Charon is bluer than Pluto. This means that the worlds have different surface composition and structure. A bright highlight on Pluto indicates that it may have a smoothly reflecting surface layer.

Though Pluto was discovered in 1930, Charon was not detected until 1978. This is because this moon is so close to Pluto that the two world's are typically blurred together when viewed through ground-based telescopes. This HST image was taken when Charon was near its maximum elongation from Pluto (0.9 arcseconds). The two worlds are 19,640 kilometres apart.

Odkaz na další informace na www.eso.org (stránka v AJ)