New Moons for Pluto

Three days later, Hubble looked at Pluto again. The two objects were still there and appeared to be moving in orbit around Pluto.

"A re-examination of [older] Hubble images taken on June 14, 2002 has essentially confirmed the presence of both P1 and P2 near the predicted locations based on the 2005 Hubble observations," said Marc Buie of Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Ariz., another member of the research team.

Hubble pictures show the new moons on the move

The team looked long and hard for other potential moons around Pluto, but they didn't find any.

"These Hubble images represent the most sensitive search yet for objects around Pluto," said team member Andrew Steffl of the Southwest Research Institute, "and it is unlikely that there are any other moons larger than about 10 miles across in the Pluto system," he concludes.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. The Institute is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., Washington, under contract with Goddard.

More information:
- on Pluto
- on the newly discovered moons, with images