PIA12453: Pluto and its Moons: Charon, Nix, and Hydra
A pair of small moons photographed by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope discovered orbiting Pluto in 2005 now have official names: Nix and Hydra.
 Target Name:  Pluto
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Hubble Space Telescope 
 Instrument:  Advanced Camera for Surveys 
 Product Size:  504 x 504 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  NASA/ESA 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA12453.tif (763.1 kB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA12453.jpg (12.04 kB)  

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A pair of small moons that NASA's Hubble Space Telescope discovered orbiting Pluto now have official names: Nix and Hydra. Photographed by Hubble in 2005, Nix and Hydra are roughly 5,000 times fainter than Pluto and are about two to three times farther from Pluto than its large moon, Charon, which was discovered in 1978.

Image Credit:
NASA, ESA, H. Weaver (JHUAPL), A. Stern (SwRI), and the HST Pluto Companion Search Team

Image Addition Date:
2009-04-21