Charon, Pluto’s largest moon, may have once “Hulked out”— where it went through a period of rapid growth, leading to the craggy surface it has today.
As announced by NASA, the New Horizons spacecraft grabbed some interesting snapshots of Charon as it passed by in July of 2015. On the side it could view, the surface was riddled with “pull apart” tectonic faults—which manifested in ridges, scarps, and valleys that occasionally reached more than 4 miles (6.5 kilometers) deep. (For comparison, the Grand Canyon is a little more than a mile or 1.6 kilometers deep.)
Such fault lines indicate that something happened long ago that expanded the surface of the moon from within, creating fractures across the surface—kind of like how, when Bruce Banner erupts into the Hulk, his growing body shreds his clothes.
As to why the surface fractured, scientists have an intriguing idea. The outermost layer of Charon is water ice, but when the moon was young, its internal heat of formation and heat from the decay of radioactive elements could have melted the innermost part of this ice shell—thereby creating an ocean under the moon’s surface.
But, as time progressed, Charon cooled down—causing the ocean to freeze. When water freezes, it expands, occupying most space than the ocean took up, and therefore breaking the surface apart and creating the enormous chasms that can be seen today.
Or, in other words, Charon “Hulked out” and broke apart its surface.
Here’s to hoping it’s not planning to smash something next.
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Image credit: NASA
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