Alejandra Sánchez, Miguel Blázquez, Stefany Adrian, Daniela Montiel, Franco Villalobos, Jacobo Cruz, Diego Aponte, Natale di Martino, Thomas Acurero, David Andres Gonzales, Michelle di Martino

Contest: 2019-20

Alejandra Sánchez, Miguel Blázquez, Stefany Adrian, Daniela Montiel, Franco Villalobos, Jacobo Cruz, Diego Aponte, Natale di Martino, Thomas Acurero, David Andres Gonzales, Michelle di Martino

Schools: Colegio Antonio Rosmini, Liceo Los Robles, Colegio Nuestra Señora del Pilar

City: Maracaibo

Professor: Patrick Morton

Topic: Charon


"Charon is a mystery we propose to solve, it's frozen surface attracted our attention, just the same as other intriguing details and it's discussed origin, its unknown internal composition and its peculiar crack surface. It’s diameter is about 1208 km2, a little more than Pluto’s, the planet it orbits.A theory to explain it’s formation is that an asteroid from Kuiper’s belt teared off a part of Pluto, forming Charon as a result, but, since Pluto is made of nitrogen and methane, and Charon is principally made by ice of water,¿would it mean this theory is invalid?

Artist's view of New Horizon and Charon
To be sure we need to send another spacecraft. If it’s another figure like Pluto, with core of stone and a surface of ice, then it would confirm the existence of cryo-geysers, that would mean the core could heat up the water under the surface and give possibility to the very existence of life, it needs heat because it is far away from the sun and it’ warmness can’t reach this moon For discovering more about Charon we suggest sending an orbital spacecraft with a similate model to the japanese one. Hayabusa includes:

  • DCAM 3
  • STAR TRACKERS
  • NIRS3 (Near Infrared Spectrometer)
  • Reentry capsule
  • Minerva-ll-1 (small solar-powered surface hopper)
  • LIDAR (laser altimeter)
  • Minerva-ll-2
  • Sample Horn
  • Target Markers
  • SCI (small carry-on Impactor)
  • TIR (Thermal Infrared Imager)
  • CAM-H (Small monitoring Camera)
  • ONC-T (Optical Navigation Camera-Telescopic)
  • Mascot
  • ONC-W2 (Optical Navigation Camera-wide angle)
  • ONC-W1 (Optical Navigation Camera-wide angle)

More instruments and optimized ones should be added. And we’d like to add instruments that would be more economic and convenient for the study of Charon, due to it's frozen surface, it's cryo-geysers and the possibility of life underneath. If it’s decided to send a module to Charon we suggest it should be as stated before, economic, thus we think that it should be unable to move, for it's not needed."

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