In the Solar System · tracked live
Charon
Pluto's largest moon and half its width, so large that the two go round a point in the empty space between them rather than one round the other. Each keeps the same face turned to the other for good, a double lock nothing else this size shows. New Horizons photographed it in 2015 and found a dark red polar cap, coloured by methane that escapes from Pluto and freezes out on Charon's cold pole.
- Radius
- 606 km
- Around the equator
- 3,808 km
- From the Sun
- 5,328,160,170 km (+99,243 km/d)
- From the Earth
- 5,284,226,501 km (+2,572,158 km/d)
- A signal takes
- 4 h 54 m
- Goes round
- Pluto
- Placed to within
- 4 km
Distances and speed are computed from JPL Horizons trajectories and are true of the date below, changing at the rate beside each.
Everything the map shows is worked out in your browser from published orbital data - nothing on it is a stored picture of where things were.