Fly Over Charon, Pluto's Biggest Moon

(calm piano music)

This summer, we all went on a vicarious vacation

with New Horizons to the Pluto system,

and NASA, like a road trip mom, documented every moment.

But the pictures it sends home aren't just pretty,

the New Horizons team uses them

to create measurements of Pluto's surface

and speculate about the dwarf planet's

geology and atmosphere.

Those picture of course become pretty videos,

like this one NASA recently made of a Pluto flyover.

Look at all those mountains, craters, and valleys.

Feels like you were really there,

cruising by in your X-Wing Fighter.

Hey, we're playing make-believe so why not?

A few days ago, the agency released another flyover,

this time of Pluto's largest moon, Charon.

Check it out.

The Charon fly-by starts at about 1,100 miles

above the surface then dips down to 40 miles

to zip over the moon's 1000 mile-long

equatorial canyon system.

New Horizons is long past Pluto now

but we still have our memories.

Ah, the memories.