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The International Astronomical Union officially named these moons Nix (Pluto II, the inner of the two moons, formerly P 2) and Hydra (Pluto III, the outer moon, formerly P 1), on 21 June 2006. [4] Kerberos, announced on 20 July 2011, was discovered while searching for Plutonian rings.
Its largest moon Charon, named after the ferryman who took souls across the River Styx, is more than half as large as Pluto itself, and large enough to orbit a point outside Pluto's surface. In effect, each orbits the other, forming a binary system informally referred to as a double-dwarf-planet .
Charon's volume and mass allow calculation of its density, 1.702 ± 0.017 g/cm 3, [13] from which it can be determined that Charon is slightly less dense than Pluto and suggesting a composition of 55% rock to 45% ice (± 5%), whereas Pluto is about 70% rock. The difference is considerably lower than that of most suspected collisional satellites.
Charon (moon) (1 C, 3 P) Pages in category "Moons of Pluto" The following 6 pages are in this category, out of 6 total. This list may not reflect recent changes. ...
Nix is a natural satellite of Pluto, with a diameter of 49.8 km (30.9 mi) across its longest dimension. [3] It was discovered along with Pluto's outermost moon Hydra on 15 May 2005 by astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope, [1] and was named after Nyx, the Greek goddess of the night. [10]
It is about half the diameter and an eighth the mass of Pluto, a dwarf planet that resides in a frigid region of the outer Solar System called the Kuiper Belt, beyond the most distant planet Neptune.
Pluto's smaller moons, including Hydra, were thought to have formed from debris ejected from a massive collision between Pluto and another Kuiper belt object, similarly to how the Moon is believed to have formed from debris ejected by a large collision of Earth. [25] The ejecta from the collision would then coalesce into the moons of Pluto. [26]
All of Pluto's moons including Kerberos have very circular orbits with very low orbital inclinations to Pluto's equator. Kerberos orbits between Nix and Hydra and makes a complete orbit around Pluto roughly every 32.167 days. [1] [16] Its orbital period is close to a 1:5 orbital resonance with Charon, [21] with the timing discrepancy being ...