[meteorite-list] Hubble Space Telescope discovers 4th moon around Pluto

From: karmaka <karmaka_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2011 22:11:26 +0200 (CEST)
Message-ID: <819232583.176878.1311192686069.JavaMail.fmail_at_mwmweb042>

Fascinating news !!!

Thank you for sharing this, Robert.

It's hard to wait another four years until New Horizons reveals more secrets
from the icy spheres around Pluto.

But that's 'space'

Best wishes

Martin


-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: "Matson, Robert D." <ROBERT.D.MATSON at saic.com>
Gesendet: 20.07.2011 20:35:17
An: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Betreff: [meteorite-list] Hubble Space Telescope discovers 4th moon around Pluto

>Hi All,
>
>Pluto has a 4th moon! Here's a link to the CBAT:
>
>http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/cbet/cbet002769.txt
>
>Below is the NASA News release:
>
>July 20, 2011
>
>Trent J. Perrotto
>Headquarters, Washington
>trent.j.perrotto at nasa.gov
>202-358-0321
>
>Ray Villard
>Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore
>villard at stsci.edu
>410-338-4514
>
>Karen Randall
>SETI Institute, Mountain View, Calif.
>krandall at seti.org
>650-960-4537
>
>
>RELEASE: 11-234
>
>NASA'S HUBBLE DISCOVERS ANOTHER MOON AROUND PLUTO
>
>WASHINGTON -- Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope discovered
>a fourth moon orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto. The tiny, new
>satellite, temporarily designated P4, was uncovered in a Hubble
>survey searching for rings around the dwarf planet.
>
>The new moon is the smallest discovered around Pluto. It has an
>estimated diameter of 8 to 21 miles (13 to 34 km). By comparison,
>Charon, Pluto's largest moon, is 648 miles (1,043 km) across, and the
>other moons, Nix and Hydra, are in the range of 20 to 70 miles in
>diameter (32 to 113 km).
>
>"I find it remarkable that Hubble's cameras enabled us to see such a
>tiny object so clearly from a distance of more than 3 billion miles
>(5 billion km)," said Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute in
>Mountain View, Calif., who led this observing program with Hubble.
>
>The finding is a result of ongoing work to support NASA's New Horizons
>mission, scheduled to fly through the Pluto system in 2015. The
>mission is designed to provide new insights about worlds at the edge
>of our solar system. Hubble's mapping of Pluto's surface and
>discovery of its satellites have been invaluable to planning for New
>Horizons' close encounter.
>
>"This is a fantastic discovery," said New Horizons' principal
>investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in
>Boulder, Colo. "Now that we know there's another moon in the Pluto
>system, we can plan close-up observations of it during our flyby."
>
>The new moon is located between the orbits of Nix and Hydra, which
>Hubble discovered in 2005. Charon was discovered in 1978 at the U.S.
>Naval Observatory and first resolved using Hubble in 1990 as a
>separate body from Pluto.
>
>The dwarf planet's entire moon system is believed to have formed by a
>collision between Pluto and another planet-sized body early in the
>history of the solar system. The smashup flung material that
>coalesced into the family of satellites observed around Pluto.
>
>Lunar rocks returned to Earth from the Apollo missions led to the
>theory that our moon was the result of a similar collision between
>Earth and a Mars-sized body 4.4 billion years ago. Scientists believe
>material blasted off Pluto's moons by micrometeoroid impacts may form
>rings around the dwarf planet, but the Hubble photographs have not
>detected any so far.
>
>"This surprising observation is a powerful reminder of Hubble's
>ability as a general purpose astronomical observatory to make
>astounding, unintended discoveries," said Jon Morse, astrophysics
>division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
>
>P4 was first seen in a photo taken with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3
>on June 28. It was confirmed in subsequent Hubble pictures taken on
>July 3 and July 18. The moon was not seen in earlier Hubble images
>because the exposure times were shorter. There is a chance it
>appeared as a very faint smudge in 2006 images, but was overlooked
>because it was obscured.
>
>Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the
>European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in
>Greenbelt, Md., manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science
>Institute (STScI) in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations.
>STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for
>Research in Astronomy Inc. in Washington.
>
>For images and more information about Hubble, visit:
>
>http://www.nasa.gov/hubble
>
>and
>
>http://hubblesite.org/news/2011/23
>
>-end-
>
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Received on Wed 20 Jul 2011 04:11:26 PM PDT