The high definition image above, taken from NASA‘s New Horizon’s satellite, is truly breathtaking.

It sounded like scientists were expecting the terrain to be similar to Earth’s moon. Instead, there are, “…mountains, canyons, landslides, surface-color variations and more.”

There is speculation of cold volcanic activity, an internal water ocean that froze long ago. The hue of the reddish-colored north polar region is particularly fascinating.

Charon has a width of just 745 miles.

It’s 3.6 billion miles from Earth.

The level of detail coming in from these photos is truly astonishing. For most of our lives, the best resolution imagery of Pluto itself was that of a fuzzy white ball with no detail. Now, we’re seeing topography up close on one of its moons.

According to NASA, even higher resolution images of Charon will arrive over the next year. As these worlds become clearer to us, they seem so much more attainable, so much more real. New mysteries revealed will continue to pique our interest, compelling us to travel further out into the solar system, and beyond.

For now, I’m content staring at a photo of a moon I never even really knew existed, and dreaming about what is yet to be discovered so far away out there, yet so much more within our reach.

by JERHOW

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