Charôn

Charón, also known as Charon, is the ferryman of the dead in Greek mythology. He transports souls across the river Styx to the realm of Hades and is typically described as a stern, quiet figure. In most myths, he receives a coin, the obol, as payment from the deceased for passage; this coin is sometimes placed in the mouth of the corpse before burial. Over time, Charón has become a symbolic figure of the passage between the living and the afterlife and appears in various works of art and literature.

Charón is also the largest moon of the dwarf planet Pluto. It was discovered in 1978 by James W. Christy, based on observations at the United States Naval Observatory. The moon measures about 1,212 kilometers in diameter, making it roughly half the size of Pluto. The Pluto–Charon system is double synchronous: both bodies rotate so that the same face always points to the other, and their common center of mass lies outside Pluto, giving the appearance of a binary system. Charón orbits Pluto at about 19,600 kilometers with an orbital period of roughly 6.4 days. In 2015, the New Horizons mission delivered close-up images, revealing diverse terrain with large canyons and icy plains; the surface is dominated by water ice with darker regions in some areas.

The name Charón in astronomy reflects the mythological origin, as part of a broader convention of naming celestial bodies after mythic figures.