Hubble discovers new Pluto moon
Pluto may have been demoted to dwarf planet status, but it’s queen bee to a clutch of moons that now number four. Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope announced today that Pluto has another moon in orbit, joining Charon, Pluto’s largest moon, Nix and Hydra.
“P4″ — the new moon’s temporary designation — is the smallest of Pluto’s moons, measuring between 8 and 21 miles in diameter. (Charon, by comparison, is 648 miles wide, and Nix and Hydra each span somewhere between 20 and 70 miles.) The sizes are hard to pin down because Pluto is around 3 billion miles away.
Full story at Discovery News.
Technology Reporter: None. Moons have nothing to do with the reason Pluto is not a planet