"Video" rotation of Charon and Pluto from photos from New Horizons

Astronomers have composed an animation sequence of rotation of Charon and Pluto from photographs sent by the New Horizons space station. The device takes photos using the LORRI tool (Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager), and the images in question were taken from January 25 to January 31. At this time, the station passed the stage of optical navigation (OpNav), that is, tried to aim at Pluto as accurately as possible. It is worth recalling that the rapprochement with Pluto and its five moons will occur July 14, 2015.

For the period from January 25 to January 31, the local day passed in the system , which lasts 6.4 Earth days here. The first image from this series was taken when the New Horizons was 4.8 billion kilometers away from Earth, and only 200 million kilometers away from Pluto. The device received the last frame when it was already 8 million kilometers closer to the system.


')
Interestingly, the animation clearly shows the vibrations of Pluto, during the rotation of Charon. The reason for this is the gravitational effect of Charon, whose mass is only 8 times smaller than that of Pluto. The satellite is located from the surface of Pluto at a distance of about 18 thousand kilometers, with Pluto and Charon always rotated to each other on the same side.

The resulting images help the station to more accurately determine the position of Pluto with Charon, to conduct a convergence maneuver with the planetoids. Scientists hope that the images of the dwarf planet and its satellite will help scientists get more information about these objects. At the moment, there is very little information about Pluto, and especially about Charon, not to mention the other moons of Pluto.