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The dwarf planet Pluto has five natural satellites. [1] In order of distance from Pluto, they are Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra. [2] Charon, the largest, is mutually tidally locked with Pluto, and is massive enough that Pluto and Charon are sometimes considered a binary dwarf planet.
Five known moons of Pluto to scale. Pluto has five known natural satellites. The largest and closest to Pluto is Charon. First identified in 1978 by astronomer James Christy, Charon is the only moon of Pluto that may be in hydrostatic equilibrium. Charon's mass is sufficient to cause the barycenter of the Pluto–Charon system to be outside Pluto.
Since the Houston workshop, Stern changed his mind to advocate instead for a Cassini-style orbiter that would use Charon's gravity to adjust its orbit while studying Pluto and its moons. [35] The probe could use electric propulsion similar to NASA's Dawn mission. It would then have the option of using Charon's gravity to leave the Pluto system ...
Charon (/ ˈ k ɛər ɒ n,-ə n / KAIR-on, -ən or / ˈ ʃ ær ə n / SHARR-ən), [note 1] or (134340) Pluto I, is the largest of the five known natural satellites of the dwarf planet Pluto. It has a mean radius of 606 km (377 mi).
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]
Pluto's four other moons, Nix, Hydra, Kerberos and Styx are far smaller and orbit the Pluto–Charon system. [5] Among the other dwarf planets, Ceres has no known moons. It is 90 percent certain that Ceres has no moons larger than 1 km in size, assuming that they would have the same albedo as Ceres itself. [6] Eris has one large known moon ...
Among the objects generally agreed by astronomers to be dwarf planets, Ceres and Sedna have no known natural satellites. Pluto has the relatively large natural satellite Charon and four smaller natural satellites; Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra. [33] Haumea has two natural satellites; Orcus, Quaoar, Makemake, Gonggong, and Eris have one each.
Pluto's satellites Nix and Hydra also have a connection with the spacecraft: the first letters of their names (N and H) are the initials of New Horizons. The moons' discoverers chose these names for this reason, plus Nix and Hydra's relationship to the mythological Pluto .