(ORDO NEWS) — In 2015, the automatic interplanetary station “New Horizons” (New Horizons) made a flyby near Pluto, and also photographed the satellites of the former ninth planet, including Charon.
It turned out that Charon has a huge fault system that stretches along the equator. Its length is at least 1000 kilometers, and the depth reaches nine kilometers.
Scientists at the Southwestern Research Institute (SwRI) have created a model of the interior of Pluto’s moon to understand how the giant rift system formed.
Modeling has shown that the most likely scenario for the origin of the faults is a rupture of Charon’s ice crust caused by the freezing of its subsurface ocean.
This event occurred at an early stage of the existence of the satellite.
The ocean remained liquid thanks to the heat released during the tidal interactions between Charon and Pluto. However, after their rotation was synchronized, the tidal interactions ceased.
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