It was 35 years ago that astronomers stopped viewing Pluto as a lone planet billions of miles from the Earth. In 1978 Pluto’s largest moon Charon was discovered, followed many decades later by Nix and Hydra in 2006 and P4 in 2011 (the latter 3 being found by the Hubble space telescope). Now, in 2012 Hubble has discovered a 5th moon of Pluto – P5.
Before Pluto was reclassified as a ‘Dwarf Planet‘ in 2006, Pluto was by far the smallest planet in our solar system. The discovery of a 5th moon has baffled scientists who have never seen such a small object harbouring such an intricate system. In 2015 an unmanned NASA spacecraft named New Horizons, will pass by Pluto and take detailed pictures of a planet that has remained relatively illusive in our solar system.
Such a late discovery of Pluto’s 5th moon has highlighted just how little we know about the solar system that we live in.
Jack is the content manager of planets.org.uk and is a keen amateur journalist. After completing a degree in astronomy from Newcastle University, Jack went on to develop this website out of his passion for space.