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Does Pluto have any moons? |
Question Date: 2014-05-20 | | Answer 1:
Good question! Pluto has five known
moons. Its first and largest moon Charon was
discovered in 1978. Charon is roughly half the
size of Pluto itself, so often Pluto and Charon
are referred to as a double [dwarf] planet system.
More recently in 2005, small moons Nix and Hydra
were discovered by a Hubble Space Telescope team.
Then in 2011, the moon Kerberos was discovered.
This moon is even smaller than Nix and Hydra, and
orbits in between those two moon orbits. Finally,
the smallest moon Styx was discovered in 2012 by a
team in charge of the New Horizons spacecraft.
Styx has an orbit distance in between Charon’s and
Nix’s orbits.
planets
profile
| | Answer 2:
Pluto has five known moons: Charon, Nix, Hydra,
Kerberos, and Styx. Here's a Hubble telescope
photograph of the largest three:
Pluto
and its satellites
Many large non-planetary objects actually have
moons, including some asteroids.
| | Answer 3:
Pluto has at least five moons, named Charon, Styx,
Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra. Of these, Charon is the
only good-sized one, about half of Pluto's already
small diameter.
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