Hubble image archive
Compass and Scale Image of Pluto
This image, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, shows five moons orbiting the distant, icy dwarf planet Pluto.The newly discovered small moon, designated P5, is the innermost of the moons found by Hubble over the past seven years.The diagram shows that P5 is in a 58,000-mile-...
- Date
- Jan 1, 2012
- Mission
- Hubble Space Telescope
- Archive ID
- hubblesite-images-2012-32-3082-image
This image, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, shows five moons orbiting the distant, icy dwarf planet Pluto.
The newly discovered small moon, designated P5, is the innermost of the moons found by Hubble over the past seven years.
The diagram shows that P5 is in a 58,000-mile-diameter circular orbit around Pluto that is assumed to be co-planar with the other satellites in the system.
Though Charon (discovered in 1978) is an even closer moon to Pluto, some astronomers consider the Pluto-Charon pair a "double planet" because of Charon's is 12 percent of Pluto's mass (by comparison our Moon is .01 percent Earth's mass).
This image was taken with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 on July 7.
Other observations that collectively show the moon's orbital motion were taken on June 26, 27, and 29, 2012 and July 9, 2012.
The new data will help scientists in their planning for the July 2015 flyby of Pluto by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft.
Credits
Illustration: NASA, ESA, and L. Frattare (STScI);Science: NASA, ESA, and M. Showalter (SETI Institute)
Image Details
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | P5, S/2012 (134340) 1 |
| Object Description | Fifth Discovered Moon of Pluto |
| 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). P5's distance from Pluto is 26,000 miles or 42,000 kilometers. |
| Dimensions | Pluto has a diameter of roughly 1,416 miles (2,280 kilometers) at the equator. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | This image was created from HST data from proposal : H. Weaver (APL/JHU), M. Showalter (SETI Institute), S.A. Stern, M. Buie, W. Merline, and A. Steffl (Southwest Research Institute), H. Throop (Planetary Science Institute), and R. Soummer and M. Mutchler (STScI) |
| Instrument | HST>WFC3/UVIS |
| Exposure Dates | June 26, 27, 29, 2012 and July 7 and 9, 2012 |
| Filters | F350LP (long pass) |
| 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. |
More Images From This Period
Downloads
Source
Image and source material are credited to the official mission archive linked below.
View on NASA.gov