Subscribe free to our newsletters via your
. 24/7 Space News .




OUTER PLANETS
Hubble Discovers a Fifth Moon Orbiting Pluto
by Staff Writers
Baltimore MD (SPX) Jul 12, 2012


This image, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, shows five moons orbiting the distant, icy dwarf planet Pluto. The green circle marks the newly discovered moon, designated P5, as photographed by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 on July 7. The observations will help scientists in their planning for the July 2015 flyby of Pluto by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft. P4 was uncovered in Hubble imagery in 2011. (Credit: NASA; ESA; M. Showalter, SETI Institute). For a larger version of this image please go here.

A team of astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is reporting the discovery of another moon orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto. The moon is estimated to be irregular in shape and 6 to 15 miles across. It is in a 58,000-mile-diameter circular orbit around Pluto that is assumed to be co-planar with the other satellites in the system.

"The moons form a series of neatly nested orbits, a bit like Russian dolls," said team lead Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif.

The discovery increases the number of known moons orbiting Pluto to five.

The Pluto team is intrigued that such a small planet can have such a complex collection of satellites. The new discovery provides additional clues for unraveling how the Pluto system formed and evolved. The favored theory is that all the moons are relics of a collision between Pluto and another large Kuiper belt object billions of years ago.

The new detection will help scientists navigate NASA's New Horizons spacecraft through the Pluto system in 2015, when it makes an historic and long-awaited high-speed flyby of the distant world.

The team is using Hubble's powerful vision to scour the Pluto system to uncover potential hazards to the New Horizons spacecraft. Moving past the dwarf planet at a speed of 30,000 miles per hour, New Horizons could be destroyed in a collision with even a BB-shot-size piece of orbital debris.

"The discovery of so many small moons indirectly tells us that there must be lots of small particles lurking unseen in the Pluto system," said Harold Weaver of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.

"The inventory of the Pluto system we're taking now with Hubble will help the New Horizons team design a safer trajectory for the spacecraft," added Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., the mission's principal investigator.

Pluto's largest moon, Charon, was discovered in 1978 in observations made at the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. Hubble observations in 2006 uncovered two additional small moons, Nix and Hydra. In 2011 another moon, P4, was found in Hubble data.

Provisionally designated S/2012 (134340) 1, the latest moon was detected in nine separate sets of images taken by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 on June 26, 27, 29, and July 7 and 9.

In the years following the New Horizons Pluto flyby, astronomers plan to use the infrared vision of Hubble's planned successor, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, for follow-up observations. The Webb telescope will be able to measure the surface chemistry of Pluto, its moons, and many other bodies that lie in the distant Kuiper Belt along with Pluto.

The Pluto Team members are M. Showalter (SETI Institute), H.A. Weaver (Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University), and S.A. Stern, A.J. Steffl, and M.W. Buie (Southwest Research Institute).

.


Related Links
Hubble at NASA
The million outer planets of a star called Sol






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle








OUTER PLANETS
Hubble telescope spots fifth moon near Pluto
Washington (AFP) July 11, 2012
US astronomers have found a fifth moon orbiting far-away Pluto, NASA said on Wednesday. The irregular-shaped moon, nicknamed S/2012 for now, is about six to 15 miles (10 to 24 kilometers) across, the US space agency said. Last year, astronomers reported finding the fourth moon around the icy dwarf planet some three billion miles away. "The moons form a series of neatly nested orbits, ... read more


OUTER PLANETS
ESA to catch laser beam from Moon mission

Researchers Estimate Ice Content of Crater at Moon's South Pole

Researchers find evidence of ice content at the moon's south pole

Nanoparticles found in moon glass bubbles explain weird lunar soil behaviour

OUTER PLANETS
NASA Mars images 'next best thing to being there'

Life's molecules could lie within reach of Mars Curiosity rover

Final Six-Member Crew Selected for Mars Food Mission

Opportunity Celebratres 3,000 Martian Days of Operation on the Surface of Mars!

OUTER PLANETS
Nose Landing Gear Tested for Dream Chaser Spacecraft

Virgin Galactic Reveals Privately Funded Satellite Launcher and Confirms SpaceShipTwo Poised for Powered Flight

Branson to take kids on first space tourist trip

Space for dessert?

OUTER PLANETS
Shenzhou mission sparks 'science fever'

China Beats Russia on Space Launches

China open to cooperation

China set to launch bigger space program

OUTER PLANETS
ESA astronaut Andre Kuipers returns to Earth

First Annual ISS Research and Development Conference in Review

Three astronauts land on Earth from ISS in Russian capsule

ISS crew rests before return to Earth

OUTER PLANETS
SpaceX Dragon Utilizes Cooper Interconnect Non-Explosive Actuators

ILS Proton Launches SES-5 For SES

Eutelsat and Arianespace pursue their longstanding collaboration with the signature of a new launch contract

Ariane 5 ECA orbits EchoStar XVII and MSG-3

OUTER PLANETS
The Mysterious Case of the Disappearing Dust

Study in Nature sheds new light on planet formation

New Instrument Sifts Through Starlight to Reveal New Worlds

Planet-Forming Disk Turns Off Lights, Locks Doors

OUTER PLANETS
The Day Information Went Global

Asian firms to pay $571 mn more in US LCD case

ESA's Clean Space targets orbital debris and greener environment

Metamolecules that switch handedness at light-speed




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement