 Enhanced color view of Safronov Regio's western border with Sputnik Planitia | |
| Location | Pluto |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 13°22′S150°31′W / 13.36°S 150.51°W [1] |
| Diameter | ~740 km (460 mi) [1] |
| Discoverer | New Horizons |
| Eponym | Viktor Safronov |
Safronov Regio (formerly Krun Macula) is the westernmost of the "Brass Knuckles", a series of equatorial dark regions on Pluto.
Safronov Regio was first observed as the New Horizons spacecraft approached Pluto and its system of moons. As Pluto rotated, a series of equatorial dark regions were observed and informally nicknamed the Brass Knuckles , [2] with Safronov Regio being the westermost of the dark regions. It was initially informally named Krun Macula after Krun, the greatest of the five Mandaean lords of the underworld. [3] [4] However, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) instead officially approved the name Safronov Regio in honor of Russian astronomer Viktor Safronov, an early proponent of the planetesimal hypothesis for Solar System formation. The name was approved on 22 September 2023. [1]
Safronov Regio is the third largest equatorial dark region on Pluto, after Belton Regio and Harrington Regio. It extends nearly to 180 degrees longitude, the Plutonian longitude opposite Charon.
Krun Macula is the name of one of the ship of the character Pluto in Heaven Will Be Mine , a 2018 visual novel. [5]
Pluto is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest known trans-Neptunian object by volume, by a small margin, but is less massive than Eris. Like other Kuiper belt objects, Pluto is made primarily of ice and rock and is much smaller than the inner planets. Pluto has roughly one-sixth the mass of the Moon, and one-third its volume.
The geology of Pluto consists of the characteristics of the surface, crust, and interior of Pluto. Because of Pluto's distance from Earth, in-depth study from Earth is difficult. Many details about Pluto remained unknown until 14 July 2015, when New Horizons flew through the Pluto system and began transmitting data back to Earth. When it did, Pluto was found to have remarkable geologic diversity, with New Horizons team member Jeff Moore saying that it "is every bit as complex as that of Mars". The final New Horizons Pluto data transmission was received on 25 October 2016. In June 2020, astronomers reported evidence that Pluto may have had a subsurface ocean, and consequently may have been habitable, when it was first formed.
Krun or Akrun is a Mandaean lord of the underworld. According to Mandaean cosmology, he dwells in the lowest depths of creation, supporting the entirety of the physical world.
486958 Arrokoth (provisional designation 2014 MU69; formerly nicknamed Ultima Thule) is a trans-Neptunian object located in the Kuiper belt. Arrokoth became the farthest and most primitive object in the Solar System visited by a spacecraft when the NASA space probe New Horizons conducted a flyby on 1 January 2019. Arrokoth is a contact binary 36 km (22 mi) long, composed of two planetesimals 21 and 15 km (13 and 9 mi) across, that are joined along their major axes. With an orbital period of about 298 years and a low orbital inclination and eccentricity, Arrokoth is classified as a cold classical Kuiper belt object.
Tombaugh Regio, sometimes nicknamed "Pluto's heart" after its shape, is the largest bright surface feature of the dwarf planet Pluto. It lies just north of Pluto's equator, to the northeast of Belton Regio and to the northwest of Safronov Regio, which are both dark features. Its western lobe, a 1,000 km (620 mi)-wide plain of nitrogen and other ices lying within a basin, is named Sputnik Planitia. The eastern lobe consists of high-albedo uplands thought to be coated by nitrogen transported through the atmosphere from Sputnik Planitia, and then deposited as ice. Some of this nitrogen ice then returns to Sputnik Planitia via glacial flow. The region is named after Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of Pluto.
Belton Regio is a prominent surface feature of the dwarf planet Pluto. It is an elongated dark region along Pluto's equator, 2,990 km (1,860 mi) long and one of the darkest features on its surface.
Mordor Macula is the informal name for a large dark area about 475 km in diameter near the north pole of Charon, Pluto's largest moon. It is named after the black land called Mordor in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.
The geology of Charon encompasses the characteristics of the surface, crust, and interior of Pluto's moon Charon. Like the geology of Pluto, almost nothing was known of Charon's geology until the New Horizons of the Pluto system on 14 July 2015. Charon's diameter is 1,208 km (751 mi)—just over half that of Pluto. Charon is sufficiently massive to have collapsed into a spheroid under its own gravity.
The geography of Pluto refers to the study and mapping of physical features across the dwarf planet Pluto. On 14 July 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft became the first spacecraft to fly by Pluto. During its brief flyby, New Horizons made detailed geographical measurements and observations of Pluto and its moons.
The Tenzing Montes are a range of icy mountains on Pluto, bordering the southwest region of Sputnik Planitia and the nearby Hillary Montes and Wright Mons. With peaks reaching 6.2 km in height, they are the highest mountain range on Pluto, and also the steepest, with a mean slope of 19.2 degrees.
Sputnik Planitia is a large, partially glaciated basin on Pluto. About 1,400 by 1,200 km in size, Sputnik Planitia is partially submerged in large, bright glaciers of nitrogen ice. Named after Earth's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, it constitutes the western lobe of the heart-shaped Tombaugh Regio. Sputnik Planitia lies mostly in the northern hemisphere, but extends across the equator. Much of it has a surface of irregular polygons separated by troughs, interpreted as convection cells in the relatively soft nitrogen ice. The polygons average about 33 km (21 mi) across. In some cases troughs are populated by blocky mountains or hills, or contain darker material. There appear to be windstreaks on the surface with evidence of sublimation. The dark streaks are a few kilometers long and all aligned in the same direction. The planitia also contains pits apparently formed by sublimation. No craters were detectable by New Horizons, implying a surface less than 10 million years old. Modeling sublimation pit formation yields a surface age estimate of 180000+90000
−40000 years. Near the northwest margin is a field of transverse dunes, spaced about 0.4 to 1 km apart, that are thought to be composed of 200-300 μm diameter particles of methane ice derived from the nearby Al-Idrisi Montes.
Vucub-Came Macula is one of the "Brass Knuckles", a series of equatorial dark regions on Pluto. It is named after Wuquub' Kameh "Seven Death", one of the Quiché death gods in the Popol Vuh.
Hun-Came Macula is one of the "Brass Knuckles", a series of equatorial dark regions on Pluto. It is named after Jun Kameh "One Death", one of the Quiché death gods in the Popol Vuh.
Meng-pʻo Macula is the easternmost of the "Brass Knuckles", a series of equatorial dark regions on Pluto. Meng-pʻo straddles the zero meridian, directly under Pluto's tidally locked moon Charon and just west of the tail of the "Whale", Belton Regio. It is named after Meng Po, the Chinese underworld deity of forgetfulness.
Morgoth Macula is the informal name for a small dark region on the surface of Pluto, southwest of the Norgay Montes and adjacent to Sputnik Planitia. It was discovered in 2015 by the spacecraft New Horizons and named after Morgoth, the primary antagonist in J.R.R. Tolkien's legendarium.
Cadejo Macula is a small dark surface feature on Pluto near Voyager Terra. It is unofficially named after El Cadejo, a hellish spirit from Central American folklore which appears in the form of a large dog-like creature with burning red eyes. The feature was photographed by the New Horizons probe during the July 2015 flyby of the dwarf planet.
Piccad Mons is a large, roughly circular mountain and likely cryovolcano on the dwarf planet Pluto. Discovered by the New Horizons spacecraft in 2015, it is located southeast of Wright Mons within the Tombaugh Regio, adjacent to the Safronov Regio and Elcano Montes.
Harrington Regio is the largest of the "Brass Knuckles", a series of equatorial dark regions on Pluto.
Sharaf Regio is the smallest of the "Brass Knuckles", a series of equatorial dark regions on Pluto. It was initially informally named Ala Macula after Ala "earth", the chthonic and most important deity of the Igbo people. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) officially approved the name Sharaf Regio after Shafika Gil’mievna Sharaf, a Soviet astronomer who developed an analytical theory for Pluto's motion.
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