I don't think it's an artefact. It's hard to tell at this resolution, but it looks like a catena/crater chain to me. Not sure how common that should be this far out.

Yep, whenever I see that feature my first thought is that it's a wee crustal plate that has broken off and is drifting away. But then I look at it and although the "fit" of the break is good, it just doesn't "feel" right. Probably what I'll do is create an enlarged and enhanced view of that feature and put it out it for public review. I suspect that it is not so much a fracture and a drift as it is a landslide feature.

I note that there is a similar set of fractures to the west making possibly a new "incipient allochthon".

What a strange little world.

--Bill

Good question - here is a quick one at 4K resolution...

Click to view attachment

some alternate views of the rift and crater chain
sun set at a 45 deg elevation

the chain

The detached block is definitely tilted, suggesting it has moved, so I agree with the idea that it was once more horizontal and belonged to the northern 'continent'. As has been pointed out it may not have drifted horizontaly enough to produce the wide gap we now see. It is obviously fractured and different parts of it are tilted at different angles so to me it's not surprising that there isn't a perfect match up with the 'continental' boundary. I think as a general idea your suggestion runs.

Yes that block looked pretty interesting ever since the farther away images.

Here is a slightly cleaner map compared with what I posted earlier this afternoon.

Click to view attachment

MOD NOTE: 7 posts about N2 ice & putative polar caps moved to the Pluto System Speculation thread.

That is great. And the "Beyond Here Lie Dragons" are looking fuzzier and fuzzier with each improvement of "Terra Cognito". Sadly, soooo tantalizing...

I took this latest map and carefully selected the fuzzy area and applied an unsharp mask to bring out detail. It may have helped, but it's still a lost cause. I 'spect that a dondavis will need to go into the blurred areas and do "an artistic impression" of what they should ought to look like while we're waiting for a New Horizon's Orbiter.

--Bill

There is this map that could be included from occulations on Solarviews
http://solarviews.com/cap/pluto/charoncyl2.htm
The low resolution areas of the NH map and Mordor appear well on it along with the bright area on the west side of the Pluto facing hemisphere. There is also big area of brightness on the southern hemisphere on it. Maybe there is an opposite colored "Mordor" there.

It's interesting to consider, generically, the spatial distribution of areal units on different worlds: If you see half the world, do you see all of the major areal types and morphological phenomena represented? Usually, the answer is yes. Some exceptions: Ishtar on Venus, the nearside maria on the Moon, Valles Marineris on Mars, the northern plains on Mars, the "ring of fire" around the Pacific on Earth, the northern seas on Titan, the active south polar region on Enceladus… If you only saw the hemisphere "anti-" each of those things, you'd have no inkling of them represented in your data. Often, you'd have a lesser version of them, such as the farside maria on the Moon as a stand-in for the much broader nearside maria, but in some cases, you have no analogue at all.

Still, these cases are the minority, so the odds are, we've seen the important stuff on Pluto and Charon already, with more of the same on the other side. But there's no guarantee of that, and we may have missed something crucial… a Pluto equivalent of Tharsis or a Charon equivalent of Ishtar…

New images of Charon now at LORRI site http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounte...Date&page=1

Here is a full list of the new images on SOC. The LORRI image dump occurred 19 minutes ago.
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounte...0x630_sci_4.jpg
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounte...0x630_sci_4.jpg
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounte...0x630_sci_4.jpg
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounte...0x630_sci_4.jpg
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounte...0x630_sci_4.jpg
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounte...0x630_sci_4.jpg
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounte...0x630_sci_4.jpg
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounte...0x630_sci_4.jpg
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounte...0x630_sci_3.jpg
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounte...0x630_sci_3.jpg
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounte...0x630_sci_3.jpg
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounte...0x630_sci_3.jpg
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounte...0x630_sci_3.jpg
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounte...0x630_sci_3.jpg
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounte...0x630_sci_3.jpg
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounte...0x630_sci_3.jpg
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounte...0x630_sci_3.jpg
All of the images are described as "Tight-deadband 2-sigma LORRI mosaic of Charon" Edit:...excpet for the ones that aren't, since those last 6 are targeted at Styx, not Charon.

The last 6 images you listed are not of Charon, they are described as :

@ugordon Oops. Good catch. You are correct. The last 6 are described as "LORRI 2nd Portion" (in the same metadata field I used for the other description) and identified as "U_TBD_1_02". I was in a hurry to put together the below image and only checked a random half of the metadata files (managed to miss the Styx ones every time ).

Here's a hand-stitched mosaic of the 11 Charon images.
Click to view attachment
(2400x2400, ~1.4 MiB)

Stereo images of Charon using new LORRI images and older MVIC image.
Resolution is ~870 m/pix. Extremely interesting topography.

I think you've got your stereo backwards, it looks concave.

Cross-eyed looks fine to me... the canyons have depth. Behind the polar cap the terrain itself is definitely lumpy and somewhat excavated. I think that is a real feature.

If y'all keep doing that cross-eyed method, your eyes will stay like that.

Anyway, Alan Stern retweeted this from Corey Powell:

Click to view attachment

https://twitter.com/coreyspowell/status/652757094387593216

'Moat without a mountain' next to a 'mountain with a moat'. I noticed that before but hadn't given it much thought. On second thought, quite interesting....

Are these moats and mountains all within that moon-spanning spreading tectonic/rift zone?

Just asking. If so what implications might that have?

P

The whole moon looks concave, like looking into a bowl.

The anaglyph is correct (for standard red/left and cyan/right glasses). The crosseyed is also correct. Maybe you're trying to view it parallel? That would invert the stereo.

Don't know what you mean by "view it parallel" - I'm just crossing my eyes and aligning the two images. Either way, it's not a big deal, I've always found these sort of images to not be that useful.

The anaglyph works for me and looks fantastic.

The Moat-Mountain/Moat series of features seem to be developing into a lineation ("Argo Chasma") to the north and east, separate from the "dichotomy rifts" ("Serenity chasma" and "Macross chasma"). That fuzzy area of the non-flyby hemisphere is so tantalizing.

--Bill

It's anaglyph and cross-eye and both work as intended.
If you have problem with cross-eye version, you can try StereoPhoto Maker and swap left and right images.
StereoPhoto Maker also allows easy viewing at 100% size.

I have been experimenting with generating a DEM of Charon from a stereo pair. The resulting DEM is extremely crude and noisy, my software isn't very sophisticated and the JPG compression artifacts mess things up but at least I'm getting something that may be interesting. Here is a color coded DEM in simple cylindrical projection generated using images lor_0299175643_0x630_sci_4.jpg and lor_0299168728_0x630_sci_3.jpg together with an image showing the terrain convered by the DEM:

Click to view attachmentClick to view attachment

The are some errors due to the fact that I don't know the exact viewing geometry of the source images (the accuracy to which I could reverse engineer it is limited). The DEM is also noisy and low-res but it can be used to make crude estimates of relative elevation differences. For example the big crater at the left edge is probably 1-1.5 km deep. The depression/'canyon' at bottom and extending to the right edge is probably ~2.5 km deep but this is somewhat difficult to estimate due to noise in the DEM and the depth may also be variable.

But what's really interesting is that the DEM reveals a possible gentle, large scale depression (the big blue area). I can't completely rule out that the southern edge of this feature could be an artifact caused by inaccurate viewing geometry but a more probable explanation is that this is a real feature. Here is one of the two images I used to make the DEM with the very approximate boundary of the possible depression indicated with green dots:

Click to view attachment

I think it should be possible to generate considerably better DEMs than this one, even when JPG source images are used. I have been looking for software (mainly free/open source stuff) to use instead of what I'm using now. I don't know yet what's going to come out of that but a lot has happened in this field since I originally wrote my (crude) stereo software several years ago.

for low frequency heights like that the sfs i use is mostly useless
it is good on hi-frequency data like the rift on the right

for this stereo is needed then run the sfs from ASP on the Gtiff from stereo-pipline ( a hi-breed sfs with the stereo using the spice data )
this is what i get -- good for wrapping around a sphere mesh for 3d shading but--- has problems
a 8 bit height map for " lor_0299175643_0x630_sci_4.jpg"
Click to view attachment

the lower half of the creator is ??? iffy maybe ??? some what visible in mine
but that is only in a side by side with your green dots

I see major parts of your big blue area as depression but I think that circular shape is partly caused by artifacts.
I think that central part (ridges) has different origin. My interpretation is that depressions are probably part of the same event which caused southern hemisphere resurfacing.
Here is quick graphics which shows boundaries of different areas. Blue boundary is edge of resurfaced southern hemisphere. Green boundary is continuation of this resurfacing event through central chasmata system. Red boundary shows edges of another depressions (they are visible in your DEM) which could be another part of the same southern hemisphere resurfacing event.

Agreed. The green-dotted depression is probably not a depression and, from the surface morphology, appears to be flatish or possibly a slightly positive elevation. It is probably a result of activity in the area of "Ripley" crater. There many changes with some resurfacing and it seems to occur in episodic events. More and more details pop out with increases in resolution-- this is going to be an interesting little world to figure out.

I'm looking forward to the Dawn team producing an elevation map. In the meantime, what are your feelings on the topography of "Mordor" macula? This feature does appear to be a depression, with the deepest rim being on the Pluto-side (left) and a shallower rim being on the anti-Pluto (right) side. I believe that feature will turn out to be the strangest of the strange on Charon.

--Bill

crosseye and parellel excerpt from Machi's stereo
yet another mystery wrapped in a connundrum, as if a cryovolcanic plug rose from one but why not the the other? although there is a minimountain just behind it. the fault line almost equidistant and perpendicular between the disparate moats mere coincidence?
Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

Charon close-ups coming down:

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounter/index.php

Here's a quick mosaic of the C_MVIC_LORRI_CA images.

Click to view attachment

Okay, wow. If I only saw the right hand side of that I'd have thought it was Pluto! It's got the same sort of (what we've been presumling is sublimation pitting) that we see on Pluto - that's so neat! And it's not everywhere, either...

We also got the "three hills in a moat" terrain, our first closeup of one of the moats. Looks like a large chunk of the western side is slumping into it. A couple small areas also look to be slumped.

The biggest moat there is polygonal - doesn't look like a crater at all. And there's some rather weird low-relief structures near its southern end and in the craters to the south - no idea what those might be. Kind of like something bubbled up there or something.

I'm sure I've seen very similar pitted terrain elsewhere (not including Pluto) and I'm trying to remember where. Probably on Mercury, the Moon or Mars.

Extreme stereo view on Charon.
Parallel viewing:
Click to view attachment
Cross-Eye viewing:
Click to view attachment

I'm intrigued by the dark-splat-in-the-middle-of-a-bright-splat in this image. (It appears at the edge of Herobrine's 3D view above.) The dark splat is presumably more recent than the larger bright one. I think it unlikely that very differently toned materials were thrown out by the two events, so I come round to the idea that ejecta change colour with time in a non-monotonic way. They are dark at first before bleaching out, and only then dull down again to match the general tone of the surroundings. Any thoughts?
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounte...0x630_sci_4.jpg

It could also be due to layering in the near-surface of Charon. IIRC the more distal, bright rays should come from material that was near the surface while the closer dark ones would result from ejects that originated at greater depths.

Interesting, but I find it hard to believe that the bigger impact missed the dirt but the later smaller one found it.

Or are you saying that it was all exposed at once, with dark and light ejecta zones mapping the subsurface layers?

a few 3d renders from
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounter/index.php
lor_0299180418_0x630_sci_3.jpg
lor_0299180415_0x630_sci_4.jpg

----------
joined the two then created a heightmap from that

Here the last mosaics





EDIT

anaglyph

mosaic and crop of:
lor_0299180421_0x630_sci_3.jpg
lor_0299180424_0x630_sci_3.jpg
-----
the partially sunken mountain

Here's an interesting bit of info, from our own (sorta) double planet,

Earth's tidal effects on the moon seem to determine the large scale orientation of lunar faults and scarps that result from cooling.



http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/43/10/851.full

So, it is reasonable to surmise that cracks visible on Charon's crust now were influenced by Charons' rotation relative to Pluto in the past....

A probably young, ammonia rich crater has been found on Charon:

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-A...?page=20151029b

We really need the PDS versions of the night-side images to do anything useful, but you have to wonder if anything will show up.

So here is a truly horrible image. It is a stack of ten of the early Pluto-shine images of Charon. They were averaged, then the average was subtracted from each frame separately, the bland result was stretched to a ridiculous degree, and the ten resulting frames were averaged again and merged into one layer.

Does it show anything? Probably not. But I still hold out hope for the raw data!

Phil

Click to view attachment

Phil it is better than i expected

It's a pity that most Charon's images are binned so resolution is very low.
But is there something in the Plutoshine?
It is! Dark side of the Charon!

EDIT: I added 4× enlarged 90° rotated version after slightly better processing.

Best I could do in pulling anything out in a short time.

Click to view attachment

Lower right half, looks like there could be a few craters popping through. Could just be noise.

Click to view attachment

@Machi: Looks really great!

"Phil it is better than i expected"


Actually, I just realized my strategy is removing the signal as well as the noise! What I did works properly with images like Clementine Long Wavelength Infrared, where the noise and hot pixels etc. are the same and can be subtracted, but the signal is different in each image. Here I am throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. Hmmm... need another strategy.

Phil

PS Machi - fantastic!

OTOH, I decided ot work with images that weren't already DOA. Here is a montage of the LORRI image set released a couple of weeks ago. Shows the "northern highland" and "southern plain" from a very different perspective than the near-encounter image sets we first saw.

The recently found "ammonia crater" ("Organa crater") is in the upper-left, partially obscured in a depression and the related "non-ammonia crater ("Skywalker crater") is just below center on the left, both near the limb. "Alice crater" is the large hummocky-floored crater in the "northern highland" and "Kirk crater" and "Clarke mons" are the features on the floor of the "southern plain"

https://univ.smugmug.com/New-Horizons-Missi...pano--annot.jpg

--Bill

Machi: that is very nice - did you use all available frames for the 4x view?

ZLD - don't those frames show Pluto, not Charon?