Charon
The largest moon of Pluto, named after Charon, the ferryman who transported the souls of the dead across the River Styx to the underworld of Hades
The Meaning of Charon
Charon is the largest moon of the dwarf planet Pluto, discovered in 1978 by James Christy at the United States Naval Observatory. It was named after Charon, the ferryman of the Greek underworld who transported the souls of the recently deceased across the rivers Styx and Acheron to the realm of Hades. The dead were required to pay Charon an obol — a small coin placed in the mouth of the corpse at burial — for the crossing. Those who could not pay, or whose bodies had not received proper funeral rites, were condemned to wander the near shore for a hundred years. Charon was depicted as a gaunt, elderly figure in dark robes, poling his flat-bottomed boat across the murky waters. The moon Charon is unusually large relative to Pluto — so large that the two bodies actually orbit a common centre of gravity located between them, leading some astronomers to consider them a binary system rather than a planet and moon. Charon's surface features include a vast reddish-brown polar cap of tholins — organic compounds — and a massive canyon system stretching across its equator that dwarfs the Grand Canyon.
Parents
None recorded
Symbols
Words We Inherited
English words and phrases that trace back to this myth. See our full guide to English words from Greek mythology.
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