Harrington Regio Explained

Harrington Regio
Coordinates:	6.58°N 309.63°W
Eponym:	Robert Sutton Harrington

Harrington Regio (formerly Balrog Macula) is the largest of the "Brass Knuckles", a series of equatorial dark regions on Pluto.

It is the largest dark equatorial feature on Pluto after the Belton Regio, and is located in the middle of the leading hemisphere.

It was initially informally named Balrog Macula after the balrogs, a race of demons in the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien.^{[1] [2]} However, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) instead officially approved the name Harrington Regio after Robert Sutton Harrington, an American astronomer who is considered to have co-discovered Charon.^{[3] [4]}

Notes and References

1. Web site: Chang. Kenneth. NASA's New Horizons Spacecraft Completes Flyby of Pluto. The New York Times. 14 July 2015. 14 July 2015.
2. Web site: Rogers. Adam. The New, Nerdy Mythology of Pluto's Place Names. Wired. 14 July 2015. 14 July 2015.
3. Web site: Harrington Regio . . Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature . 11 September 2024.
4. Web site: Robert Sutton Harrington (1942–1993) . Worley . Charles . 1 September 1993 . baas.aas.org . . 11 September 2024.