On 31 October 2005 Hubble discovered two new moons orbiting Pluto - Nix and Hydra - while photographing the dwarf planet in preparation for the New Horizons mission. These two moons, named Nix and Hydra, are two to three times farther away from Pluto than its largest moon, Charon. The little moons may have formed at the same time as Charon did, perhaps all three splitting off from Pluto in a giant impact event. Pluto is the only world named by an 11-year-old girl. In 1930, Venetia Burney of Oxford, England, suggested to her grandfather that the new discovery be named for the Roman god the underworld. He forwarded the name to the Lowell Observatory and it was selected. Plutos moons are named for other mythological figures associated with the underworld. Charon is named for the river Styx boatman who ferries souls in the underworld; Nix is named for the mother of Charon, who is also the goddess of darkness and night; Hydra is named for the nine-headed serpent that guards the underworld; Kerberos is named after the three-headed dog of Greek mythology; and Styx is named for the mythological river that separates the world of the living from the realm of the dead.
Posted on: Fri, 01 Nov 2013 07:19:59 +0000
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