Does Pluto Have a Giant Crater?

New Horizons

It's an exciting time for space enthusiasts. The NASA probe, New Horizons, is just two weeks from its July 14th flyby of Pluto. Everyday new images arrive revealing more details of Pluto and its moons Charon, Nix, Hydra, Styx, and Kerberos (Nod to CR4 Member G.K. for possibly naming this moon). The images are already starting to surprise scientists. Charon appears to have a surprisingly dark pole. Pluto's moons* seem to tumble about chaotically. *Note - Pluto and Charon have more of a binary dwarf-planet arrangement than a traditional planet-moon arrangement. The other moons orbit the center of gravity of the Pluto-Charon binary (see image below). The center of gravity of the Pluto-Charon system is outside of the surface of Pluto.

The last month the ever improving images of Pluto have seemed...off. The dwarf-planet didn't seem to be completely round. At first scientists explained it was an optical illusion caused by the distance and the deconvolution method used to improve the images taken by LORRI on New Horizons. However, as the space probe gets closer and closer to Pluto, and the images sent back to us get better and better, it's starting to look like Pluto may have a gigantic crater that does indeed distort it's shape.

We wont have to wait long to find out for sure. In two weeks New Horizons will get as closer than 10,000 km to Pluto. Starting July 11th, the surfaces of Pluto and Charon will begin being mapped at 40 km (25 mile) resolution! Soon we will know for sure if the giant crater is real or some weird image processing effect. It sure looks real though in that June 29th image!

Approaching Pluto (LORRI Images)

Pluto-Charon Binary System