Pluto Has Another Moon, Hubble Photos Reveal

The tiny satellite is estimated to be between 8 and 21 miles (13 to 34 kilometers) wide. For comparison, Pluto's largest moon Charon is 648 miles (1,043 km) across. The dwarf planet's other moons, Nix and Hydra, range between 20 to 70 miles across (32 to 113 km).

Pluto's new moon is located between the orbits of Nix and Hydra, which Hubble also discovered in 2005. Charon was discovered in 1978 at the U.S. Naval Observatory and was first resolved using Hubble in 1990 as a separate body from Pluto.

The finding is a result of ongoing work to support NASA's New Horizons mission, which is scheduled to fly through the Pluto system in 2015. The mission is designed to provide new insights about worlds at the edge of our solar system.

source

Everybody loves Pluto How I wonder what New Horizons will discover during its flyby. Even the best pictures we have of Pluto now leave a lot to the imagination so it is bound to be exciting to all us space junkies. Enjoy

Yep,very interesting,when is the flyby to take place...thats what i'm waiting for

Oh cool. Little bitty one at that.

Most cities are bigger than that.


Too cool.

Pluto is still a planet it my heart by the way

OK so now Pluto is up to 4 moons? Anyone know of any other object that has moons that isn't classified as a "planet"? It's strange how Pluto got downgraded 'after' Hubble discovers it has all these moons, very bizarre to me.

Elenin has objects orbiting it and we are calling it a comet, so I guess they are just making it up as they go and calling it "facts". That's all most people need to stay in line, tell them things are facts and they'll defend it till the very end.

yes pluto making the headlines again


we love you pluto ! Were coming for ya one day buddy ! iknow you got 100's of more surprises once we get there !

perhaps diamond eating monkeys riding elephant boats lool

So hubble can see moons of Pluto, but they can't get a good picture of Elenin?

What's the deal?

reply to post by JibbyJedi


I'd like to see your source for objects orbiting Elenin. We already know of asteroids with moons, and at least two other trans-Neptunian bodies with moons. There could be thousands of moons orbiting bodies in the solar system other than the 8 planets. If you use a broader description of moons, like Trojan moons earth has several more moons, and Jupiter thousands more.

Here is the orbital dynamics of one of earth's trojan moons illustrated.

Wow Pluto does have its many fans Pluto probably should have been grandfathered in as a planet out of sentimentality if nothing else. Part of me wonders if when we get a clear and detailed image of Pluto will some of its mystique or the special fascination it seems to hold be lost?

This one is harder to visualize even with the great work someone produced with software for orbital dynamics. This I believe is the asteroid with the 'horseshoe' orbit around the orbit of earth.

Originally posted by JibbyJedi
OK so now Pluto is up to 4 moons? Anyone know of any other object that has moons that isn't classified as a "planet"? It's strange how Pluto got downgraded 'after' Hubble discovers it has all these moons, very bizarre to me.

Beat me to it.

Surely they must have to reconsider their decision & upgrade it to planet status again.

I know that for me, growing up with pluto as a planet, it always will be.

Pluto has informed me that he will continue to add a new moon every year until we stop calling him a "dwarf planet!"
(Thanks for the post; S&F!)

How is it earth got stuck with just one moon?
It would have been awesome to have two or three in the night sky.
Not sure what effect that would have had on life developing here though.

Originally posted by Illustronic
reply to post by JibbyJedi

 

I'd like to see your source for objects orbiting Elenin.

I would like to show it to you but I can't seem to find it amongst all the garbage posted online about Elenin. Seems to be lost in the pile at the moment to me but I will continue looking.

I saw telescopic photos taken over the course of days to weeks of Elenin and there were at least 2 large objects tagging along with it. I am skeptical about everything until I see something tangible and what I saw was pretty convincing. I'll bet it has been posted on ATS by now, but there's so many Elenin threads it's unlikely I'll find it.

reply to post by JibbyJedi


Elenin could be broken up so far as we know but soon we should get a pretty good image from STEREO B when Elenin passes by just 7.4 million km away from it. I'm not holding my breath however, imaging comets is not the prime function of the STEREO crafts, I'm not sure what kind of images we'll get, and I doubt they have sensors to penetrate the comet's coma, otherwise we'd have already seen comet cores from the STEREO crafts and we haven't.

reply to post by JibbyJedi

I saw telescopic photos taken over the course of days to weeks of Elenin and there were at least 2 large objects tagging along with it. I am skeptical about everything until I see something tangible and what I saw was pretty convincing. I'll bet it has been posted on ATS by now, but there's so many Elenin threads it's unlikely I'll find it.

What you see in most photographs of the comet are background stars. They appear to blink because the photos are put together from several images taken over a short period of time. The process is called "stacking."

Originally posted by DJW001
reply to post by JibbyJedi

 

I saw telescopic photos taken over the course of days to weeks of Elenin and there were at least 2 large objects tagging along with it. I am skeptical about everything until I see something tangible and what I saw was pretty convincing. I'll bet it has been posted on ATS by now, but there's so many Elenin threads it's unlikely I'll find it.

What you see in most photographs of the comet are background stars. They appear to blink because the photos are put together from several images taken over a short period of time. The process is called "stacking."

Yeah I saw those and know the difference. These objects were dark and stationary in the photos as was Elenin, the background stars were blurred from time lapse motion photography. There were at least 3 still objects in the Elenin photos, the 2 smaller objects appeared to be following or orbiting Elenin.

Originally posted by DJW001
reply to post by JibbyJedi

 

I saw telescopic photos taken over the course of days to weeks of Elenin and there were at least 2 large objects tagging along with it. I am skeptical about everything until I see something tangible and what I saw was pretty convincing. I'll bet it has been posted on ATS by now, but there's so many Elenin threads it's unlikely I'll find it.

What you see in most photographs of the comet are background stars. They appear to blink because the photos are put together from several images taken over a short period of time. The process is called "stacking."

8 and 21 mile wide moon . . . pluto is too cute.

also thanks for explaining this. i've been hearing talk about Elenin having two objects going along with it and haven't much of a chance to read into it. It'll be good also having that perspective on it when I read about it myself. appreciate it~

pluto should be a planet again because the rhyme i learnt at school does not work anymore =(

my very excited mouse jumped straight up no.....(problem)

once again

reply to post by JibbyJedi

The definition of "Planet" has evolved over time like our understanding of our Universe, this is a good thing. The word planet once meant wandering star as it was observed moving around in the night sky compared with the background of stars, retrograde motions and all.

Now a planet is considered an object that has a specific orbit around a star, is of moderate size and clears out most of the debris in its orbital path. Pluto is considered too small and its orbital path crosses that of Neptune's making it the 8th planet for a little while. Pluto is a dwarf planet, that's fine. Pluto has moons, that's fine too.

What has this got to do with the comet Elenin? A comet is defined as an object with a coma/tail and a highly elliptical orbit spending most of its time in the outer solar system.

Asteroids are bodies that have orbital motions inside the solar system and no coma/tails. There is a not clearly defined size restriction for both comets and asteroids but the main difference is in their orbital characteristics and whether they have cleared out their orbital path.

Elenin has objects orbiting it and we are calling it a comet,

Elenin is well defined as a comet. You say you saw objects trailing behind Elenin and then call these moons? Who now is making it up as they go?

I saw telescopic photos taken over the course of days to weeks of Elenin and there were at least 2 large objects tagging along with it.

I would like to see this as well. Keep in mind that objects trailing behind Elenin are not necessarily in orbit.

Wasn't the main reason for declassifying Pluto the fact that if Pluto was to be considered a planet, then they had to classify a whole bunch of objects as planets too because they had the same properties as Pluto. That would probably make your nursery rhyme even worse