
Animation of Pluto and Charon showing nearly a full rotation (NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute)
Now here’s something I guarantee you’ve never seen before: a video of the dwarf planet Pluto and its largest moon Charon showing the two distinctly separate worlds actually in motion around each other! Captured by the steadily-approaching New Horizons spacecraft from July 19–24, the 12 images that comprise this animation were acquired with the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) instrument from distances of 267 million to 262 million miles (429 million to 422 million km) and show nearly a full orbital rotation. Absolutely beautiful!
For a close-up video of the two worlds in motion, click below:
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Read the rest of Watch Pluto and Charon Engage in Their Orbital Dance (252 words)
© Jason Major for Universe Today, 2014. |
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Post tags: Alan Stern, animation, barycenter, Charon, movie, New Horizons, planets, Pluto, rotation, Solar System
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