Serenity Chasma is the unofficial name given to a large pull-apart fault on Pluto's 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 ...

. It is part of a series of faults that run along the perimeter of Vulcan Planum. It 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 ...

'' mission, and informally named after the fictitious spaceship, ''

Serenity Serenity may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Serenity'' (2019 film), a thriller starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway and Diane Lane * Sailor Moon (character), also known as Princess Serenity and Neo-Queen Serenity, in the ' ...

''.

Geology

Serenity Chasma is long, and about deep, and its typical width is . The northern wall continues for an additional as a scarp after exiting the chasma. The chasma is part of a global tectonic belt; a series of canyons, scarps, and troughs that traverse the face of Charon. This series of faults is the longest known in the solar system. Serenity Chasma formed as the result of a subsurface ocean on Charon, which expanded as it froze. This expansion pushed the Oz Terra region higher and produced the fault belt across Charon's equatorial region.

Landslides Landslides, also known as landslips, are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, deep-seated slope failures, mudflows, and debris flows. Landslides occur in a variety of environments, ...

have been observed within Serenity Chasma. This is the only known occurrence of landslides in the

Kuiper Belt The Kuiper belt () is a circumstellar disc in the outer Solar System, extending from the orbit of Neptune at 30 astronomical units (AU) to approximately 50 AU from the Sun. It is similar to the asteroid belt, but is far larger—20 times ...

. The lower portion of the Image shows colour-coded topography of the same scene Measurements of the shape of this feature tell scientists that Charon's Water ice layer may have at least partially liquid in its early history

References

{{reflist New Horizons

Geology

See also

References