Tiny, frozen Pluto adds to its moon family

[tocqueville]

2 hours, 41 minutes ago

LONDON (Reuters) - The tiny, distant and frozen planet Pluto, for 30 years believed to have just one moon, has suddenly been found to have two more satellites.

Only discovered in 1930 because of its vast distance from Earth, Pluto has remained a largely enigmatic object ever since.
........................

Its first known satellite Charon was not discovered until 1978. With a diameter of 1,200 km, it is half that of Pluto -- abnormally large for a moon in relation to its primary.

But now, using images from the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists from Johns Hopkins University, Southwest Research Institute and the Massachussetts Institute of Technology say they have found two more tiny orbiting satellites, P1 and P2.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060222/sc_nm/space_pluto_dc

[htuttle]

1. I hope those aren't Kuiper belt objects coming our way instead!

Looks like they've only seen them for a short time. I hope they are continuing to track them (I'm pretty sure they are).

This raises all sorts of questions. I don't imagine we have any idea if Charon was captured by Pluto, or whether it was 'blown off' in a collision like our own Moon seems to have. Also, I don't think I ever imagined that an object (Pluto) could have moons with what might be nearly equal to it's own mass orbiting it (if it has three).

How long till we get there and see? 2012? 2015? I forgot.

[Wilms]

2. 2015 Pluto-Charon encounter

2016-2020 Kuiper Belt objects encounter

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main

[benburch]

4. Will there still be a NASA then?

Or a USA?

[tocqueville]

3. they seem to rotate according to the picture....nt

[eppur_se_muova]

5. More images at HubbleSite...higher res., etc.

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/2006/09/