Pluto surprise!
Academics may continue to quibble about whether Pluto is technically a planet, or not, but this week astronomers discovered two more moons orbiting around the diminutive orb.
The Hubble telescope keeps on amazing us with its stunning discoveries. While the Bush administration wants to bring the Hubble down (to save money) scientists using it continue to do pioneering science...brilliant science that can't be done any other way right now.
In fact the use of the Hubble to study Pluto was only due to the last minute cancellation of a more "prestigious" deep space project. The planetary science guys struggle to get time on a big instrument like the Hubble, but they were ready when the opportunity presented itself.
Two More Moons Discovered Orbiting Pluto
Two small moons have been discovered orbiting Pluto, bringing the planet's retinue of known satellites to three and leaving scientist to wonder how it could be.
"That suggests they probably formed at the same time as Charon," Weaver told SPACE.com in a telephone interview Friday. NASA planned a teleconference with reporters Monday at 1 p.m. ET to announce the discovery.
While scientists had predicted there might be more moons, the newfound setup is surprising nonetheless, in part because Pluto is smaller than our own Moon.
"It's almost like a mini solar system," Weaver said. "How can something about 70 percent the size of Earth's Moon have all these satellites? How can that happen? We're going to have to explain that."
The moon-hunting project was denied by Hubble planners several times and took years to get approved, and only then after a failed instrument on Hubble last year caused project leaders to add several previously unaccepted observing programs to fill the schedule.
For Hubble, this one was easy.
Unlike many observing projects that require several Hubble orbits – often 15 or more and sometimes many dozens -- Weaver's team needed just two orbits. On the first set of observations they spotted the two points of light, then on the second orbit they found them again and made sure they moved against the background of relatively fixed stars.
Two More Moons Discovered Orbiting Pluto
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