Emily Lakdawalla • Oct 13, 2015
Charon in 3D
Last week, the pile of New Horizons LORRI camera raw image releases included nine frames from a high-resolution mosaic on Charon. You can put those together, if you like, to make a nice black-and-white global view, but it isn't dramatically different from the glorious color image of Charon taken by Ralph MVIC that they released last week. However, it is a little bit different. The LORRI view was taken a couple of hours before the MVIC one, and during those two hours, New Horizons' perspective on Charon changed. The perspective shift makes for a pretty dramatic 3D view of this moon's often surprising topography.
![Charon in 3D](https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/web/assets/pictures/_1200x1200_crop_center-center_82_line/193/20151013_nh-charon-stereo_ana.jpg 1200w, https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/web/assets/pictures/_768x768_crop_center-center_82_line/193/20151013_nh-charon-stereo_ana.jpg 768w, https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/web/assets/pictures/_576x576_crop_center-center_82_line/193/20151013_nh-charon-stereo_ana.jpg 576w)
Pretty cool! Here's a quick look at all the close-approach Charon imagery now available on the raw image website.
![Catalog of New Horizons' close-approach images of Charon as of October 13, 2015](https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/web/assets/pictures/_2400x1599_crop_center-center_82_line/20151013_nh_flyby_catalog_charon.jpg 2400w, https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/web/assets/pictures/_1200x799_crop_center-center_82_line/20151013_nh_flyby_catalog_charon.jpg 1200w, https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/web/assets/pictures/_768x511_crop_center-center_82_line/20151013_nh_flyby_catalog_charon.jpg 768w, https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/web/assets/pictures/_576x383_crop_center-center_82_line/20151013_nh_flyby_catalog_charon.jpg 576w)
Other recent New Horizons image releases include this lovely color view of Pluto's entire backlit globe, which shows you that Pluto's sunrises and sunsets are tinted blue:
![Pluto's blue skies](https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/web/assets/pictures/_1200x1200_crop_center-center_82_line/85013/20151008_blue_skies_on_pluto-final-2.jpg 1200w, https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/web/assets/pictures/_768x768_crop_center-center_60_line/85013/20151008_blue_skies_on_pluto-final-2.jpg 768w, https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/web/assets/pictures/_576x576_crop_center-center_60_line/85013/20151008_blue_skies_on_pluto-final-2.jpg 576w)
And they finally downlinked a photo of Styx, which is surprisingly small. Pause for a moment and think about how surprising it is that astronomers were able to discover this tiny world, picking out the light of a moon only 5 kilometers in diameter orbiting so close to Pluto. Hubble is an amazing piece of engineering.
![Styx from New Horizons](https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/web/assets/pictures/_1200x955_crop_center-center_82_line/20151013_styx-moon-3.jpg 1200w, https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/web/assets/pictures/_768x611_crop_center-center_60_line/20151013_styx-moon-3.jpg 768w, https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/web/assets/pictures/_576x458_crop_center-center_60_line/20151013_styx-moon-3.jpg 576w)
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