Pluto’s large moon Charon turned out to be far more interesting than astronomers expected. Pluto was the star when the New Horizons probe flew by, but the features on Charon’s surface tell a fascinating tale of how icy worlds could form far from the gravitational influences of the giant planets. There is evidence of a world-wide sub-surface ocean early on, and of global expansion as that ocean froze solid. Charon’s surface also has a region of plains where icy materials may once have flowed and smoothed over the fractures present elsewhere on its surface. Dr. Beyer is your expert guide through this story of formation and change in the frozen reaches of the outer Solar System.
Dr. Ross Beyer is a Planetary Scientist with the Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute and at NASA's Ames Research Center.
This talk was given May 15, 2019
Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures