Charon as Seen by New Horizons in the Infrared

Charon, the largest satellite of Pluto, is a gray-colored icy world covered mostly in H2O ice, with spectral evidence for NH3, as previously reported (Cook et al. 2007, Astrophys. J. 663, 1406-1419; Merlin, et al. 2010, Icarus, 210, 930; Cook, et al. 2014, AAS/Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting Abstracts, 46, #401.04). Images from the New Horizons spacecraft reveal a surface with terrains of widely different ages and a moderate degree of localized coloration. New Horizons observed Charon at high spatial resolution (better than 10 km/px) with the LEISA imaging spectrometer. LEISA is part of the Ralph instrument (Reuter, D.C., Stern, S.A., Scherrer, J., et al. 2008, Space Science Reviews, 140, 129) and affords a spectral resolving power of 240 in the wavelength range 1.25-2.5 µm, and 560 in the range 2.1-2.25 µm. We present results obtained from the analysis of high spatial resolution data obtained close to flyby.