Pluto and Charon with known topography scaled one in ten million

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tato_713

@tato

A big double dwarf planet, popularly considered as a planet before discovering several small bodies like it.

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updated March 7, 2021

Description

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Originally published here: Pluto and Charon with known topography scaled one in ten million by tato_713 - Thingiverse

This model is made using MATLAB R2016a on the topography map from the USGS Astrogeology Science Center site, from the data of the New Horizons mission. The original maps have the known topography only, the rest of the minor planets surface topography is unknown because of the low resolution of the images and because some parts of the bodies were in complete darkness at the time the probe made its flyby. It's scaled to 1 in 107 or one in ten million. The topography of Charon is scaled to the real value; while the one of Pluto is exaggerated 3 times, to make the features visibles and suitable for printing. The Pluto model is about 22cm in diameter and Charon 12cm. On this scale the Moon is a basketball, and Mars' moons Phobos and Deimos are 2 and 1 mm respectively. It's also included a one in twenty million scaled version because some printer may not be able to print at the prior scale.
The distance between Pluto and Charon in the image is not in scale.

The file's names explained: name_1_x_10_y.stl is 1 : x* 10^y. So _1_6_10_7 is 1:600000000 or one in 60 million.

134340 Pluto

Pluto is the biggest dwarf planet by diameter and the second by mass after Eris. Pluto was first considered as a planet, definition that was dubbed after the discovery of other similar objects like Eris, Makemake and other trans neptunian objects, and triggered the 2006 planet redefinition. The most notable surface feature on Pluto is the Sputnik planitia, a depression with a half heart shape, higher albedo (aka whiteness), possibly originated by an impact of another body.

Type: Dwarf planet. TNO. Plutino. Binary
Orbit: Sun. Kuiper belt
Orbital period: 248 yr.
Composition: Icy body. Differentiated interior.
Density: 1.854 g/cm3.
Dimensions: 2376.6 km.
Model scale: 1:1x107 (24cm) 1:2x107 (12cm)

(134340 Pluto 1) Charon

Charon is the main satellite of Pluto, and it's so big, that the barycenter between them is outside Pluto. After that, some authors consider the system Pluto-Charon a binary dwarf planet. The other satellites of Pluto (Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra in order of distance from Pluto) are too small to make them in the same scale.