History
The innermost moon, Charon, was discovered by James Christy on June 22, 1978, nearly half a century after Pluto. Two outer moons were imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope Pluto Companion Search Team in May 2005, and precovered from Hubble images taken in June 2002. With the orbits confirmed, the moons have been given definitive names: Hydra (Pluto III, formerly S/2005 P 1) and Nix (Pluto II, formerly S/2005 P 2). The names were chosen in part because the initials (NH) allude to the New Horizons mission. Further Hubble observations were made in February and March 2006. The possibility of rings created by impacts on the smaller moons will be investigated by the New Horizons probe. The fourth moon was announced in July 2011, and the fifth in July 2012.
Read more about this topic: Moons Of Pluto
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I find the world. What others have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience. I have to judge the world, to measure things.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Man watches his history on the screen with apathy and an occasional passing flicker of horror or indignation.”
—Conor Cruise O’Brien (b. 1917)