Friday, July 5, 2013

The two new moons of Pluto now have a name ... - TF1

Discovery of a fifth moon around Pluto class=”title SZ11 c7″> Discovery of a fifth moon around Pluto / Credits: AFP / Mr Showalter / ESA / HUBBLE

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the planet Pluto . Since then, two other satellites of the dwarf planet was discovered and provisionally named P4 and P5. It will now be called Kerberos (Cerberus in French) and Styx. Astronomers have recently discovered with the Hubble Space Telescope have proposed these names, at the end of a public competition, says the International Astronomical Union (IAU), headquartered in Paris.

Kerberos is the Greek name of Cerberus, the many-headed dog that guarded the gates of Hades, the god Pluto field in ancient mythology. Styx is itself a goddess personifying the river of the same name, which is supposed to separate the earthly underworld.
Kerberos would only from 13 to 34 km in diameter. As for Styx, astronomers think it has a potato-shaped 10 to 25 km long. “Kerberos is located between the orbits of Nix and Hydra, two largest moons discovered by Hubble in 2005, and is between Styx Charon, the largest moon and closer to Pluto, and Nix,” said IAU .

“dwarf planet”

Charon was the first moon of Pluto to have been discovered in 1978, when Pluto still enjoyed its status as the ninth planet in the solar system. But in 2006, the IAU has redefined the term “planet” and Pluto, discovered in 1930, suddenly found herself relegated to “dwarf planet”.
Must say that Pluto a diameter of only 2,300 kilometers, or two-thirds of our Moon, and its mass is less than 1% that of Earth.

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