Moon of Pluto · Updated May 2026
Charon.
Charon is the largest moon of Pluto at 1,212 km diameter — half the size of Pluto itself. The two are so close in mass that they orbit a barycentre outside Pluto's surface, making the system effectively a binary dwarf planet. Both bodies are tidally locked to each other, always presenting the same face.
View Pluto system in 3D →Key facts
Standing on Pluto, Charon would appear seven times larger in the sky than the Moon does from Earth — and would never move.
About Charon
New Horizons revealed in 2015 that Charon's north pole is stained dark red, an area informally called Mordor Macula, formed by methane that escaped from Pluto, drifted to Charon, froze on the cold pole, and was then chemically transformed by ultraviolet light.
How to view Charon in 3D
Charon orbits Pluto in real time inside the interactive viewer. Open the parent body to see the orbital geometry, or use the object browser to fly directly to the moon and observe its rotation, surface, and orbit.
Open the Pluto system →Sources & methodology
Numbers cross-referenced with the sources below; updated May 2026.