Moons of Pluto

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Image taken from the Hubble Telescope showing Pluto and its three largest moons.

The moons of Pluto are moons which orbit the dwarf planet Pluto. There are five moons orbiting the dwarf planet in total. The first one discovered was Charon which is near one quarter the size of Pluto. Charon was also sometimes considered a double dwarf planet. The second was Nix, the third was Hydra, the fourth moon was Kerberos, and the fifth moon to be discovered was Styx.

History[change | change source]

Similar sizes of the Objects in the Plutonian system.

The first and largest moon discovered orbiting around Pluto was Charon, Charon was discovered on June 22 1978 by James Christy. In May 2005, the Hubble Space Telescope discovered two smaller moons which were named Nix and Hydra. [1] Two even smaller moons named Kerberos and Styx were discovered in 2011 and 2012. [2] [3]


References[change | change source]

  1. ↑ "Planetary Names: Planet and Satellite Names and Discoverers". planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov.
  2. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2015-05-01. Retrieved 2013-01-16.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  3. ↑ Science, Mike Wall 2012-07-11T15:06:47Z; Astronomy (11 July 2012). "Pluto Has a Fifth Moon, Hubble Telescope Reveals". Space.com.
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