NASA's Hubble Discovers Another Moon Around Pluto

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday July 20, 2011 @04:32AM from the spinning-round-and-round dept.

thebchuckster writes "Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope discovered a fourth moon orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto. The tiny, new satellite – temporarily designated P4 — was uncovered in a Hubble survey searching for rings around the dwarf planet. The new moon is the smallest discovered around Pluto. It has an estimated diameter of 8 to 21 miles (13 to 34 km). By comparison, Charon, Pluto's largest moon, is 648 miles (1,043 km) across, and the other moons, Nix and Hydra, are in the range of 20 to 70 miles in diameter (32 to 113 km)."

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Re:Planet by EvanED · 2011-07-20 04:46 · Score: 3, Interesting

Depending on how you count, it may be more accurate to say "rocky ice". By volume, Pluto has more ice than rock. (By mass, it is indeed an icy rock.)
Re:Planet by fyngyrz · 2011-07-20 12:10 · Score: 3, Interesting

Yep. I'm pretty comfortable with the idea that our star holds on to more than nine planets. I also think the idea that Pluto isn't a planet is ridiculous, and that any definition that ends up that way is by definition, busted.

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