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> Pluto and its moons
Pluto and its moons
author: ESA/Nasa/Novapix
reference: a-plu02-00004
Image Size 300 DPI: 24 * 13 cm
Pluto resides inside the Kuiper Belt and is about 3 billion miles from the Sun. Pluto was discovered in 1930.
The moons' orbits are in the same plane as the orbit of the much larger satellite Charon (discovered in 1978). This likely means the moons were not captured, but instead were born, along with Charon, in what is commonly theorized to have been a titanic collision between two Pluto-sized objects over 4 billion years ago. Observations made on Feb. 15, 2006, with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).
The moons' orbits are in the same plane as the orbit of the much larger satellite Charon (discovered in 1978). This likely means the moons were not captured, but instead were born, along with Charon, in what is commonly theorized to have been a titanic collision between two Pluto-sized objects over 4 billion years ago. Observations made on Feb. 15, 2006, with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).
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