New moons for pluto
26 February 2006
by Richard
Conan-Davies
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The presence of two new moons around the distant planet Pluto has been confirmed by the Hubble space telescope. Although initially discovered by Hubble in May 2005, this time the astronomers probed even deeper into the Pluto system last week to look for more satellites and to confirm the orbits of the moons. Pluto inhabits an area called the Kuiper Belt, a swarm of icy bodies encircling the solar system beyond Neptune and may be more complex and dynamic than astronomers once thought. Orbiting in the same plane as the orbit of the much larger satellite Charon suggests these moons were born at the same time as Charon. But they are not that close. The moons, provisionally designated S/2005 P 1 and S/2005 P 2, are approximately 40,000 and 30,000 miles away from Pluto, respectively. |
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Related Links
Original press release from NASA
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