Hubble Discovers 5th Moon of Pluto

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday July 11, 2012 @07:00AM from the more-traffic-for-some-new-horizons-frogger dept.

Stirling Newberry writes "This image shows 'P5,' the placeholder name for a fifth natural moon of Pluto, a tiny sliver that orbits ~29,000 miles from its primary in a circular orbit. Other than Charon, Hubble has been the means by which astronomers have found all of the known moons of Pluto. '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.'"

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Re:Not a planet by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-11 07:07 · Score: 4, Informative

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor-planet_moon
Lots of asteroids have moons.
Re:Only a planet... (Sqore 200,000), Astromical! by MarioMax · 2012-07-11 07:13 · Score: 4, Informative

According to Wikipedia:
A natural satellite or moon is a celestial body that orbits a planet or smaller body, which is called its primary.
Technically, Pluto fits the definition of "planet or smaller body". A moon doesn't necessarily need to orbit a planet; it can orbit a very, very dense hunk of rock that doesn't fit the definition of planet, but has a sufficiently strong gravitational pull to keep it in orbit.