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Charon (moon)
Charon, discovered in 1978, is, depending on the definition employed, either the largest moon of Pluto or one member of a double dwarf planet with Pluto being the other member. With the discovery in 2005 of two other moons of Pluto (Nix and Hydra), Charon is now also referred to as Pluto I. The New Horizons mission is scheduled to visit Charon and Pluto in July 2015. Charon was discovered by astronomer James Christy on June 22, 1978 when he was examining highly magnified images of Pluto on photographic plates taken a couple of months before. Christy noticed that a slight bulge appeared periodically. Later, the bulge was confirmed on plates dating back to April 29, 1965.
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Space & Time News
October 18, 2025
Oct. 15, 2025 — 3I/ATLAS, a mysterious interstellar object racing toward the Sun, is baffling scientists with its speed and origin. Some researchers suggest it could even be alien-made, drawing comparisons to probes ...
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Oct. 12, 2025 — A colossal northern asteroid impact billions of years ago likely shaped the Moon’s south polar region and explains its uneven terrain. Researchers found that the South Pole-Aitken Basin formed from a glancing northern strike, revealing deep ...
Oct. 12, 2025 — ESA’s Mars orbiters have observed comet 3I/ATLAS, only the third interstellar comet ever discovered. The faint, distant object revealed a glowing coma as it was heated by the Sun. Researchers are still studying the data to understand its makeup ...
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Oct. 6, 2025 — ESA has inaugurated a powerful new 35-meter deep space antenna at its New Norcia site in Western Australia, marking a major boost to Europe’s ability to communicate with spacecraft exploring the ...
Oct. 3, 2025 — Researchers have designed a new type of gravitational wave detector that operates in the milli-Hertz range, a region untouched by current observatories. Built with optical resonators and atomic clocks, the compact detectors can fit on a lab table ...
Sep. 30, 2025 — A new boron-rich compound, manganese diboride, delivers much higher energy density than current solid-rocket materials while remaining stable until intentionally ignited. Its power comes from an unusual, strained atomic structure formed during ...
Sep. 18, 2025 — Astronomers have long relied on supercomputers to simulate the immense structure of the Universe, but a new tool called Effort.jl is changing that. By mimicking the behavior of complex cosmological models, this emulator delivers results with the ...
Sep. 18, 2025 — Faint hydrogen signals from the cosmic Dark Ages may soon help determine the mass of dark matter particles. Simulations suggest future Moon-based observatories could distinguish between warm and cold dark matter, providing long-sought answers about ...
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Sep. 15, 2025 — The booming space industry has filled the skies with rockets and satellites, but this rapid expansion comes with a hidden danger: slowing the recovery of the ozone layer. Rocket launches and burning space debris release chlorine, soot, and metals ...
Latest Headlines
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Oct. 17, 2025 — Researchers have discovered chemical fingerprints of Earth's earliest incarnation, preserved in ancient mantle rocks. A unique imbalance in potassium isotopes points to remnants of “proto Earth” ...
Oct. 17, 2025 — Scientists from NASA and Chalmers University have discovered that incompatible substances can mix on Titan’s icy surface, breaking the “like dissolves like” rule of chemistry. Under ultra-cold ...
Oct. 16, 2025 — For the first time, scientists observed a black hole tearing apart a star far from its galaxy’s center, producing the fastest-changing radio signals ever recorded. The event, AT 2024tvd, revealed ...
Oct. 16, 2025 — Ryugu’s samples reveal that water activity on asteroids lasted far longer than scientists thought, possibly reshaping theories of how Earth gained its oceans. A billion-year-old impact may have ...
Oct. 16, 2025 — Researchers discovered a new field of ancient tektites in South Australia, revealing a long-forgotten asteroid impact. These 11-million-year-old glass fragments differ chemically and geographically ...
Oct. 16, 2025 — CO₂ ice blocks on Mars may dig gullies as they slide and sublimate in the thin atmosphere. In lab experiments, scientists recreated these eerie, worm-like movements under Martian conditions. The ...
Oct. 15, 2025 — Scientists at TU Wien have uncovered that quantum correlations can stabilize time crystals—structures that oscillate in time without an external driver. Contrary to previous assumptions, quantum ...
Oct. 15, 2025 — Scientists at the University of Hawaiʻi have discovered why it rains on the Sun. Solar rain, made of cooling plasma, forms rapidly during solar flares, a mystery now solved by modeling time-varying ...
Oct. 15, 2025 — Astronomers are investigating a strange class of exoplanets known as eccentric warm Jupiters — massive gas giants that orbit their stars in unexpected, elongated paths. Unlike their close-orbiting ...
Oct. 15, 2025 — Researchers analyzing pulsar data have found tantalizing hints of ultra-slow gravitational waves. A team from Hirosaki University suggests these signals might carry “beats” — patterns formed by ...