Where is Serenity Chasma on Charon?
Serenity Chasma is centered at about 24° north, 15° east, in the belt of canyons and scarps that runs across the hemisphere New Horizons saw up close. It cuts through Oz Terra, the broken northern highlands, close to where they meet Vulcan Planitia, the lower plains to the south; at its eastern end its southern wall stops at that boundary, and its northern wall carries on for another 200 kilometers as a south-facing cliff. Mandjet Chasma, at least 450 kilometers long, continues the belt to the west. Serenity Chasma is an informal name: the New Horizons team uses it, but the International Astronomical Union has not approved it.
How deep is Serenity Chasma?
More than 6 kilometers in places. Beyer et al. measured it 40 to 50 kilometers wide from rim to rim and over 200 kilometers long, with relief of upwards of 5 kilometers and a largest vertical offset of more than 6 kilometers. It is a classic rift valley: a block of crust dropped between two faults as Charon's crust was pulled apart, about as deep as Ithaca Chasma on Saturn's moon Tethys and half as wide. The blocks along this edge of the highlands are tilted, and their crests, 5 to 6 kilometers above Charon's mean radius, are the highest known points on Charon; in the published file the highest of all, 6,911 meters, is on the rim of Serenity Chasma.
What does Serenity Chasma look like as a 3D print?
A trench between broken blocks. Its entry frames about 250 kilometers, all of it on the sharpest ground New Horizons measured, 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 canyon itself is 30 to 40 millimeters wide on the model. Beyond about 3x the stereo's own noise starts to show. Ground this sharp is only about a fifth of Charon, the canyon belt and the ground around it; the north polar cap, for one, prints as streaks.
It is the region we built our first Charon test model from: a hexagon puzzle 200 millimeters across, framing about 295 kilometers, at 2x, in 61 pieces. The picture used when this page is shared is that model, as the generator made it.
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
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.