The New York Times has an article by
Dennis Overbye about
Pluto's companion,
Charon:
Some confusion has arisen about how to pronounce the name of Pluto's main companion, Charon. We talked about it with James Christy, who discovered Charon by seeing Pluto looking suspiciously elongated on a photographic plate back in 1978.
Dr. Christy, an astronomer at the United States Naval Observatory at the time, decided to name the new object after his wife Charlene, whose nickname was Char. And so, he and she maintain, the moon's name should be pronounced Shar-on (with the sh like Cher, not chair and the ar like bar), not Karon or Chair-on as some commentators have said.
You can hear him say Charon here and explain the moon's origin story here. (Pardon the background noise, as this was recorded amid the celebrations at NASA's lab in Maryland.)
"A lot of husbands promise their wives the moon," Ms. Christy added, "but mine delivered."
Rico says he never promised anyone the moon... (And there's another
Charon in mythology.)
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