Kirk Crater is the unofficial name given to a small
crater
Crater may refer to:
Landforms
*Impact crater, a depression caused by two celestial bodies impacting each other, such as a meteorite hitting a planet
*Explosion crater, a hole formed in the ground produced by an explosion near or below the surfac ...
on
Pluto
Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the S ...
's largest moon
Charon
In Greek mythology, Charon or Kharon (; grc, Χάρων) is a psychopomp, the ferryman of Hades, the Greek underworld. He carries the souls of those who have been given funeral rites across the rivers Acheron and Styx, which separate the wo ...
. The crater was discovered by the ''
New Horizons
''New Horizons'' is an Interplanetary spaceflight, interplanetary space probe that was launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research ...
'' space probe in 2015 during its flyby of Pluto and its moons. It was named after the character
James T. Kirk
James Tiberius Kirk is a fictional character in the ''Star Trek'' media franchise. Originally played by Canadian actor William Shatner, Kirk first appeared in ''Star Trek'' serving aboard the starship USS ''Enterprise'' as captain. Kirk leads ...
from the ''
Star Trek
''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...
'' media franchise. The crater is located in the southern hemisphere, just south of the equator, and just east of the prime meridian, near
Clarke Montes, in a region that astronomers have named
Vulcan Planum.
The floor of Kirk Crater is covered with small mounds called
hummock
In geology, a hummock is a small knoll or mound above ground.Bates, Robert L. and Julia A. Jackson, ed. (1984). “hummock.” Dictionary of Geological Terms, 3rd Ed. New York: Anchor Books. p. 241. They are typically less than in height and ...
s, which may provide evidence for how ice flowed.
See also
*
List of geological features on Charon
The geological features of Charon (moon), Charon, the largest moon of Pluto, are being mapped by scientists using data from the ''New Horizons'' spacecraft. The team has given provisional names to the most prominent.
, only some of the names hav ...
References
Impact craters on Charon
New Horizons
Star Trek
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