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| Pluto's fascinating moon Charon, is rich in mineral wealth and on the list for space tourism to new worlds |
SPACE1 NEW WORLDS PLUTO AND CHARON
Speculating about a new faster form of space travel, Space1 envisions a trip to the largest moon around Pluto, Charon.
A trip to Charon would be one of the longest vacationing trips as this moon orbits around Pluto, at the far reaches of the Solar System 3.67 billions miles from the Earth. The New Horizons spacecraft flyby, during July 2015, shows how the moon might look during a space tour. Using current technology, it took New Horizons approximately 9 years to reach destination. With all new flight technology, Space1 tours are expected to be much shorter, some about the time span of a vacation tour ship.
Charon, also called (134340) Pluto I, is the largest of the five known moons of the dwarf planet Pluto. It was discovered in 1978 at the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., using photographic plates taken at the United States Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station (NOFS).
Distance, Pluto's average distance from the Sun is 40 astronomical units (5.91 billion km or 3.67 billion miles). The Earth is only 1 AU from the Sun. When the Earth and Pluto are perfectly lined up with the Sun, their closest point is approximately 28 astronomical units.
New Horizons launched on Jan. 19, 2006; it swung past Jupiter for a gravity boost and scientific studies in February 2007, and conducted a six-month-long reconnaissance flyby study of Pluto and its moons in summer 2015, culminating with Pluto closest approach on July 14, 2015. As part of an extended mission, pending NASA approval, the spacecraft is expected to head farther into the Kuiper Belt to examine another of the ancient, icy mini-worlds in that vast region, at least a billion miles beyond Neptune’s orbit.
