Today I learn that Pluto and Charon are tidally locked to each other.
> Charon always presents the same face to Pluto, and
> Pluto always presents the same face to Charon: from
> any position on either body, the other is always at
> the same position in the sky, or always obscured
Just to be clear: this is not a new discovery. The mutual tidal locking has been known experimentally for quite a while, and can be predicted with high confidence based on their sizes and distance.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 22.9 ms ] thread"NASA's New Horizons Spacecraft Stays the Course to Pluto"
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20...
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http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20...