Charon (moon) Charon (moon) Charon, also known as (134340) Pluto I, is the largest of the five known natural satellites of the dwarf planet Pluto. It has a mean radius of 606 km. It was discovered in 1978 at the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., using photographic plates taken at the United States Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station (NOFS). With half the diameter and one eighth the mass of Pluto, Charon is a very large moon in comparison to its parent body. Its gravitational influence is such that the barycenter of the Plutonian system lies outside Pluto. The reddish-brown cap of
Naming of chemical elements planets, dwarf planets, a few asteroids, our star, our planet, and our Moon. Uranium, neptunium, plutonium, cerium, and palladium were named after Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Ceres, and Pallas respectively, which were at the time of their naming all considered to be planets. (Today, Pluto and Ceres are considered to be dwarf planets, and Pallas is considered to be an asteroid.) The name of the element selenium came from the Greek word for the Moon (Σελήνη, "Selene"). The name helium comes from the Greek word for the Sun (Ἢλιος, "Helios"). This is because the first evidence for helium was in distinctive,