Pluto and its five moons, with new moon (P5) circled in green.
Image: NASA, ESA, and M. Showalter (SETI Institute)
Astronomers have detected a new, fifth moon orbiting the dwarf planet Pluto, using images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope (above).
The irregularly shaped moon is between six and 16 miles across. It circles Pluto in a 30,000-mile-radius orbit, roughly an eighth of the distance at which our moon orbits Earth. Hubble spotted the moon, whose short designation is “P5,” with one of its wide-field cameras in nine images taken in late June and early July.
via Wired
