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See Daytime Views of Pluto and Charon’s Rotation
On approach in July 2015, the cameras on NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft captured Pluto rotating over the course of a full “Pluto day.” The best available images of each side of Pluto taken during approach have been combined to create this view of a full rotation. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI.
A day on Pluto is 6.4 Earth days (6 days 9 hours and 36 minutes) long. That’s a lengthy, cold, and rather dark day. But this new image released by the New Horizons spacecraft team gives us a better idea of what a day on Pluto might be like. This montage of images shows Pluto rotating over the course of a full Pluto day.
It is interesting to note that Pluto’s moon Charon is tidally locked around Pluto, so this means that Charon takes 6.4 Earth days to orbit around Pluto – the same amount of time as a day on Pluto. If you were standing on Pluto, Charon would always be at the same place in the sky, or you wouldn’t be able to see it at all. And vise versa if you were on Charon.
New Horizons also captured a full day rotation for Charon, too, which you can see below.
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Read the rest of See Daytime Views of Pluto and Charon’s Rotation (416 words)
© nancy for Universe Today, 2015. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: Charon, Missions, New Horizons, Pluto
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Source: http://www.universetoday.com/123533/see-daytime-views-of-pluto-and-charons-rotation/
