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:
“It’s not the sentiments of men which make history but their actions.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“the future is simply nothing at all. Nothing has happened to the present by becoming past except that fresh slices of existence have been added to the total history of the world. The past is thus as real as the present.”
—Charlie Dunbar Broad (1887–1971)
“Most events recorded in history are more remarkable than important, like eclipses of the sun and moon, by which all are attracted, but whose effects no one takes the trouble to calculate.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)