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The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Pluto possesses five known moons. Charon is by far the largest, being fully half the size of Pluto. Pluto’s other four moons—Hydra, Nix, Kerberos, and Styx—are much smaller than Charon. All four are elongated and revolve around Pluto outside Charon’s path in nearly circular orbits and in the same ...
Jan 17, 2014 · NASA, ESA, and L. Frattare. In 1978, the dwarf planet Pluto was discovered to have a companion, called Charon. With a mass about 12% Pluto’s mass, Charon orbits its partner about seventeen Pluto-radii away (for comparison, our Moon has less than 2% of the Earth's mass and orbits about sixty Earth-radii away). But that’s not all.
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.
New Horizons, a NASA spacecraft, was launched in 2006 and arrived at Pluto in 2015. The spacecraft provided new insights into the dwarf planet and its moons, including the discovery of four additional moons: Nix, Hydra, Kerberos, and Styx. Currently, Pluto is known to have five moons, with Charon being the largest and most well-known.
Jan 17, 2014 · NASA, ESA, and L. Frattare. In 1978, the dwarf planet Pluto was discovered to have a companion, called Charon. With a mass about 12% Pluto’s mass, Charon orbits its partner about seventeen Pluto-radii away (for comparison, our Moon has less than 2% of the Earth's mass and orbits about sixty Earth-radii away). But that’s not all.
Name Diameter Mass Distance from Pluto; Charon: 1,206 km: 1.47 x 10 21 kg: 19,636 km: Hydra: 60 - 170 km: unknown kg: 64,000 km: Nix: 46 - 136 km: unknown kg: 49,000 km
Charon is the nearest and largest moon of Pluto. The space probe New Horizons has visited near Pluto and its moons system in July 2015. Now, you must have got to know how many moons does Pluto has. It has a total of 5 moons. In this article, we mentioned all Moons of Pluto with some interesting facts and information.
