High-resolution images of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charon_(moon)" class="extiw" title="w:Charon (moon)">Charon</a> were taken by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons#Long-Range_Reconnaissance_Imager_(LORRI)" class="extiw" title="w:New Horizons">Long Range Reconnaissance Imager</a> (LORRI) on NASA's <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons" class="extiw" title="w:New Horizons">New Horizons</a></i> spacecraft, shortly before closest approach on July 14, 2015, and overlaid with enhanced color from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons#Ralph_telescope" class="extiw" title="w:New Horizons">Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera</a> (MVIC). Charon's cratered uplands at the top are broken by series of canyons, and replaced on the bottom by the rolling plains of the informally named Vulcan Planum. The scene covers Charon's width of 754 miles (1,214 kilometers) and resolves details as small as 0.5 miles (0.8 kilometers).
<p>The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, designed, built, and operates the New Horizons spacecraft, and manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The Southwest Research Institute, based in San Antonio, leads the science team, payload operations and encounter science planning. New Horizons is part of the New Frontiers Program managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
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The original NASA image has been converted from TIFF to JPEG format and cropped by the uploader.
NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute
<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA19967">http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA19967</a> (see also <a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/charon-in-detail">http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/charon-in-detail</a>)