Hubble image archive
Pluto and Its Moons: Charon, Nix, and Hydra
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 m...
- Date
- Jan 1, 2007
- Mission
- Hubble Space Telescope
- Archive ID
- hubblesite-images-2007-16-2105-image
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.
Credits
NASA, ESA, H. Weaver (JHU/APL), A. Stern (SwRI), and the HST Pluto Companion Search TeamImage Details
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Pluto, Charon, Nix, Hydra |
| Object Description | Dwarf Planet with Satellites |
| Distance | Although its orbit is highly eccentric, Pluto's average distance from the Sun is 39.44 astronomical units (roughly 3.6 billion miles or 5.9 billion kilometers). |
| Dimensions | Pluto has a diameter of roughly 1,416 miles (2,280 kilometers) at the equator. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | These HST data are from proposal : H.A. Weaver (JHU/APL), S.A. Stern and J.R. Spencer (SwRI), M.W. Buie (Lowell Obs.), E. Young, L.A. Young, and A.J. Steffl (SwRI), M. Mutchler (STScI) and W.J. Merline (SwRI). |
| Instrument | HST>ACS/HRC |
| Exposure Dates | February 15, 2006 |
| Filters | F606W (V) |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | This image was originally black and white and recorded only overall brightness. These brightness values were translated into a range of bluish hues. Such color "maps" can be useful in helping to distinguish subtly-varying brightness in an image. The colors in this image are not what human eyes would see looking at Pluto. |
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Image and source material are credited to the official mission archive linked below.
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