What Would You Name P5, Pluto's New Moon?
Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 16:30
in Astronomy & Space
For not being a planet, according to 2 percent of astronomers, Pluto sure has a lot of moons.Now it has one more, joining Charon, which was discovered in 1978, Nix and Hydra, discovered in 2006, and P4, found in 2011. Pluto’s new-found moon, provisionally designated S/2012 (134340) 1, or P5, is tiny and only visible as a speck of light in Hubble images, so it is estimated to be irregular in shape and between 10 and 25 kilometers across. It is in a 95,000 kilometer-diameter circular orbit and assumed to lie in the same plane as Pluto’s other known moons. read more