Hubble image archive
Hubble Views the Pluto System
These Hubble Space Telescope images, taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys, reveal Pluto, its large moon Charon, and the planet's two new putative satellites. In the short-exposure image [left], taken June 11, 2002, the candidate moons cannot be seen. They do, however, appear...
- Date
- Jan 1, 2005
- Mission
- Hubble Space Telescope
- Archive ID
- hubblesite-images-2005-19-1726-image
These Hubble Space Telescope images, taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys, reveal Pluto, its large moon Charon, and the planet's two new putative satellites. In the short-exposure image [left], taken June 11, 2002, the candidate moons cannot be seen. They do, however, appear in the middle and right-hand images. Longer exposure times were used to take these images. Pluto and Charon are overexposed in these images, causing the bright streaks or "blooms" that emerge vertically from them. The candidate moons are not overexposed because they are thousands of times less bright than Pluto and Charon. In these unprocessed images, various optical artifacts of the Advanced Camera for Surveys system are visible, such as the radial spokes of light caused by the telescope's optics. The enhanced-color images of Pluto and Charon were constructed by combining images taken in filters near 475 nanometers (blue) and 555 nanometers (green-yellow). The images of the new satellites were taken in a single filter centered near 606 nanometers (yellow), so no color information is available for them.
Credits
NASA, ESA, H. Weaver (JHU/APL), A. Stern (SwRI), and the Hubble Space Telescope Pluto Companion Search TeamImage Details
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Pluto |
| Object Description | Dwarf Planet |
| Distance | Although its orbit is highly eccentric, Pluto's average distance from the Sun is 39.44 Astronomical Units (A.U.) or roughly 3.6 billion miles (5.9 billion kilometers). |
| Dimensions | Pluto has a diameter of roughly 1,475 miles (2,280 km) at the equator. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | These HST data are from proposal : H.A. Weaver (JHU/APL), M.W. Buie (Lowell Obs.), S.A. Stern, J.R. Spencer, E. Young, and L.A. Young (SwRI); and proposal 9391: M.W. Buie and W.M. Grundy (Lowell Obs.), E. Young, L.A. Young, and S.A. Stern (SwRI). M. Mutchler (STScI) and A.J. Steffl (SwRI) are also on the science team. |
| Exposure Dates | June 11, 2002 (left), May 15, 2005 (center), and May 18, 2005 (right) |
| Filters | ACS/HRC (2002): F475W (B) and F555W (V) ACS/WFC (2005): F606W (V) |
More Images From This Period
Source
Image and source material are credited to the official mission archive linked below.
View on NASA.gov