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OUTER PLANETS
Hubble telescope spots fifth moon near Pluto
by Staff Writers
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, a bit like Russian dolls," said Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California.

Pluto's largest moon, Charon, is 648 miles across. The other two, Nix and Hydra, are between 20 and 70 miles in diameter, NASA said.

Hubble -- a potent space telescope that has transformed the field of astronomy since it was first launched in 1990 -- discovered Nix and Hydra in 2005. Astronomers at the US Naval Observatory glimpsed Charon in 1978.

Pluto, once known as the ninth planet from the Sun, was declassified as a full-fledged planet in August 2006 and joined the new category, dwarf planet.

At about 1,430 miles wide, it is about two-thirds the size of the moon and has a mass less than one percent of the Earth's.

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OUTER PLANETS
New Horizons Doing Science in Its Sleep
Laurel MD (SPX) Jul 10, 2012
NASA's New Horizons, now almost 24 times as far from the Sun as the Earth is, is back in hibernation, a slumbering state in which it will remain until January 2013. But hibernation aboard the spacecraft isn't quite what it used to be. Starting this month, New Horizons - the first emissary to Pluto and the third planetary zone of our solar system, and fifth spacecraft to explore the outer heliosp ... read more


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