Kirk is the unofficial name given to a small

crater A crater is a landform consisting of a hole or depression (geology), depression on a planetary surface, usually caused either by an object hitting the surface, or by geological activity on the planet. A crater has classically been described ...

Pluto Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of Trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Su ...

's largest moon

Charon In Greek mythology, Charon or Kharon ( ; ) is a psychopomp, the ferryman of the Greek underworld. He carries the souls of those who have been given funeral rites across the rivers Acheron and Styx, which separate the worlds of the living and ...

. The crater was discovered by the ''

New Horizons ''New Horizons'' is an Interplanetary spaceflight, interplanetary space probe launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research Institut ...

'' space probe in 2015 during its flyby of Pluto and its moons. It was named after the character James T. Kirk from the media franchise ''

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the Star Trek: The Original Series, series of the same name and became a worldwide Popular culture, pop-culture Cultural influence of ...

''. The crater is located in the southern hemisphere, just south of the equator, and just east of the prime meridian, near Clarke Montes, in a region that astronomers have named Vulcan Planitia. The floor of Kirk Crater is covered with small mounds or hummocks, which may be due to cryovolcanic activity erupting viscous material. Alternatively, the mounds may have originated from landslides.

References

Impact craters on Charon Discoveries by New Horizons Star Trek {{crater-stub

See also

References