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Dorothy

The largest known crater on Charon, Pluto's largest moon, an impact basin at the edge of the dark north polar cap. Its southern half lies on sharp ground and prints as a deep floor with a central peak; its northern rim reaches into the polar cap, which New Horizons saw only from far away.

Size261 km across
DepthAbout 6 km, with a central peak about 4 km high
Coordinates55.0° N, 38.0° E
Crater center58.53° N, 40.58° E (the view above is centered south-west of it, on sharp ground)
TypeImpact crater (basin)
Named afterDorothy Gale, the heroine of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; adopted by the IAU in 2018
Elevation sourceNew Horizons stereo topography, posted at 300 m per pixel

Size, center and name from the IAU Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature; the depth, the central peak and the dark cap from Schenk et al. 2018, the New Horizons team's topographic map of Charon. Coordinates are the center point OrbitStudio uses for this destination.

Where is Dorothy on Charon?

Dorothy's center is at 58.53° north, 40.58° east, in the northern highlands at the edge of Neverland Regio, the dark red cap around Charon's north pole known informally as Mordor Macula. The crater breaks the cap's otherwise circular outline, and its floor carries none of the dark material around it. OrbitStudio's entry for Dorothy is centered a little to the south-west, at 55° north, 38° east, so that the view stays on the sharp ground south of the cap. The International Astronomical Union adopted the name in 2018, after the heroine of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; the highlands around it are known informally as Oz Terra.

How big and deep is Dorothy?

The gazetteer gives it 261 kilometers across. The New Horizons team measured it at about 240 kilometers and 6 kilometers deep, the largest crater on Charon, with a central peak about 4 kilometers high, broadly like the central peaks of craters on Saturn's icy moons.

What does Dorothy look like as a 3D print?

A deep floor and a central peak, with the sharp south-western rim around them. Its entry frames about 254 kilometers, so on a model 200 millimeters across the relief in that view comes out at about 7 millimeters at true scale and about 14 millimeters at the 2x Charon models start at. The crater is a little wider than the view, so its northern and eastern rim fall outside it, and the northern edge and north-eastern corner of the view, about a tenth of it, lie in the polar cap and print softer. The cap itself is not worth printing: New Horizons saw it only from far away, and its heights print as east-west streaks.

Print Dorothy in OrbitStudio Watch how it works · 1:12

What is OrbitStudio?

OrbitStudio turns real elevation data into 3D-printable models. You pick a region of Charon on a globe or a flat map, choose a jigsaw puzzle or a solid ornament, and get ready-to-print files with terrain and borders already separated and colored. No CAD, no mesh repair. The heights come from New Horizons' stereo topography, posted at 300 meters per pixel.

Trying it is free and needs no account: pick a region, generate it and turn it around in 3D. Downloading the model — STL files and pre-colored 3MF files for Bambu Studio or OrcaSlicer — takes a Plus or Merchant plan, or one credit from a pass. The generator covers the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Venus and Pluto too.

Other landmarks

Serenity Chasma Clarke Montes Kubrick Mons All Charon landmarks

The night sky, too

OrbitStudio Sky, the night-sky tool, turns the sky over any place, on any date from 1900 to 2100, into a 3D-printable star map. Its STL is free.