{"id":495,"date":"2025-05-24T04:56:25","date_gmt":"2025-05-24T04:56:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.sciencepicker.com\/?p=495"},"modified":"2025-05-24T04:56:25","modified_gmt":"2025-05-24T04:56:25","slug":"plutos-mysterious-moons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.science-pickers.com\/plutos-mysterious-moons\/","title":{"rendered":"Pluto\u2019s mysterious moons"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pluto is a planet that\ncontinues to describe fascinating tales. Long ago when a small spacecraft\npassed through the system, the scientists concluded that Pluto had total five\nmoons that were distant and mysterious. The scientists were on a mission to get\na closer look at as many of these moons as possible in an effort to learn more\nabout them and how these mysterious moons exist. As the spacecraft moved\nquickly, it captured close-up images of Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, and\nglimpses of the smaller ones too. These small moons of Pluto were named Styx,\nNix, Kerberos, and Hydra. As these four smaller moons orbit in circular paths,\nmeanwhile, Pluto and Charon orbit together like the bulls-eye of a target.\nPlanetary scientists speculate that Pluto’s moons were established as a result\nof a titanic collision between at least two things that occurred in the distant\npast. Charon and Pluto settled into a locked orbit with each other, while the\nother smaller moons scattered out to more distant orbits.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pluto\u2019s Smaller MoonsStyx<\/strong>, Nyx<\/strong>, Hydra<\/strong>, and Kerberos<\/strong> are tiny moons<\/strong> that orbit within at least two times the range that Charon does from Pluto<\/strong>. All these smaller moons<\/strong> are oddly shaped, which lends confidence to the idea that they formed as part of a collision in Pluto’s<\/strong> history. One of these smaller moons<\/strong>, Styx<\/strong>, was discovered in 2012 as astronomers were using Hubble Space Telescope to search the system for moons<\/strong> and rings around Pluto<\/strong>. It appears to have an elongated shape and is about 3 by 4.3 miles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Source: Pixabay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Nyx<\/strong> was found in 2006\norbiting out near Styx<\/strong>, along with distant Hydra<\/strong>. Nyx<\/strong> is\nsomewhat strangely shaped moon<\/strong> because of its dimensions i.e. 33-25-22\nmiles, and it takes nearly 25 days to make one orbit of Pluto<\/strong>. Nyx<\/strong>\nis supposed to have some of the same theolins as Charon spread across its\nsurface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hydra<\/strong> is a smaller moon<\/strong>\nthat is most distant of Pluto’s<\/strong> five moons<\/strong>, and New Horizons’\nmission was able to get a fairly good image of the Hydra<\/strong>. There seem to\nbe a few cavities on the lumpy surface of this tiny moon<\/strong>. Hydra<\/strong>\nmeasures about 34-25 miles and it takes Hydra<\/strong> roughly 39 days to make\none orbit around Pluto<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kerberos<\/strong> is the most\nmysterious-looking moon<\/strong> which looks lumpy and distorted in the New\nHorizons mission image. It appears to be a double-lobed tiny moon<\/strong> with\ndimensions of approximately 12 x 3 miles across. Kerberos<\/strong> takes just 5\ndays to complete one trip around Pluto.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did these moons get their names?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Pluto is named after the God of\nthe underworld according to traditional Greek mythology. Styx<\/strong> is the\nriver that dead souls were supposed to cross to get to Hades, Nyx<\/strong> is the\nGreek goddess of darkness. Hydra<\/strong> is named after a many-headed serpent\nbelieved to have battled with the Greek hero Heracles<\/strong>. Kerberos<\/strong>\nis the so-called “hound of Hades<\/strong>” who guarded the gates to the\nunderworld.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We hope you liked the information\nshared, cheers!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pluto is a planet that continues to describe fascinating tales. Long ago when a small spacecraft passed through the system, the scientists concluded that Pluto had total five moons that were distant and mysterious. The scientists were on a mission to get a closer look at as many of these moons as possible in an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-space-and-astronomy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.science-pickers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.science-pickers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.science-pickers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.science-pickers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.science-pickers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.science-pickers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":850,"href":"https:\/\/www.science-pickers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495\/revisions\/850"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.science-pickers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.science-pickers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.science-pickers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.science-pickers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}