A Closer look at Pluto and Charon
On Friday, Feb. 12 from 3-3:50 pm, Dr. Matt Craig, Department of Physics and Astronomy will present images from the New Horizons spacecraft in the MSUM Planetarium. The New Horizons spacecraft continues to send back images from its close encounter last summer with Pluto and its moon Charon. After a quick introduction to the Pluto-Charon system and how it differs from real planets we will look at some of the surprising images from New Horizons. Both Pluto and Charon were expected to have very old, heavily cratered surfaces; instead New Horizons discovered ice mountains over 10,000 feet high, a canyon that spans half of Charon, and some very young surfaces.