More Moons Around Pluto? |
More Moons Around Pluto? |
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Press Release Source: NASA
NASA's Hubble Reveals Possible New Moons Around Pluto Monday October 31, 12:30 pm ET WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 /PRNewswire/ -- Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to view the ninth planet in our solar system, astronomers discovered Pluto may have not one, but three moons. If confirmed, the discovery of the two new moons could offer insights into the nature and evolution of the Pluto system; Kuiper Belt Objects with satellite systems; and the early Kuiper Belt. The Kuiper Belt is a vast region of icy, rocky bodies beyond Neptune's orbit. "If, as our new Hubble images indicate, Pluto has not one, but two or three moons, it will become the first body in the Kuiper Belt known to have more than one satellite," said Hal Weaver of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md. He is co-leader of the team that made the discovery. Pluto was discovered in 1930. Charon, Pluto's only confirmed moon, was discovered by ground-based observers in 1978. The planet resides about 3 billion miles from the sun in the heart of the Kuiper Belt. "Our result suggests other bodies in the Kuiper Belt may have more than one moon. It also means planetary scientists will have to take these new moons into account when modeling the formation of the Pluto system," said Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colo. Stern was co-leader of the research team. The candidate moons, provisionally designated S/2005 P1 and S/2005 P2, were observed approximately 27,000 miles away from Pluto. The objects are roughly two to three times as far from Pluto as Charon. The team plans to make follow-up Hubble observations in February to confirm the newly discovered objects are truly Pluto's moons. Only after confirmation will the International Astronomical Union consider names for S/2005 P1 and S/2005 P2. The Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys observed the two new candidate moons on May 15, 2005. The candidates are roughly 5,000 times fainter than Pluto. Three days later, Hubble looked at Pluto again. The two objects were still there and appeared to be moving in orbit around Pluto. The team looked long and hard for other potential moons around Pluto. "These Hubble images represent the most sensitive search yet for objects around Pluto," said team member Andrew Steffl of the Southwest Research Institute. "It is unlikely that there are any other moons larger than about 10 miles across in the Pluto system," he said. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. The Institute is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., Washington. For detailed information and images about this research on the Web, visit: http://hubblesite.org/news/2005/19 For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/home -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Source: NASA |
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How conclusively do the occulatation derived studies of Pluto and Charon rule out rings around either object?
Discussion: My thinking is, for the portion of the data derived when Pluto and Charon were directly aligned (center line of both bodies aligned with earth), the possible rings would have been exactly edge on to us and far below the resolving power of the occultation technique. As the alignment of Pluto and Charon approach and recede from this condition, however, any rings would have been more open to our view, and would have affected the data being taken. Noticeably? Bright rings should have 'skewed' the light curves, but what about dark Uranian style rings? Would the effect have been just a subtle darkening of the disk to either side of the center line? Would this have been noted? The possible rings of either object would start ingress well ahead of the disk of the respective body, but this would have started as much as the length of time of the main occultation itself. Since the occultations occured every ~6 1/3 days, and this was known to high accuracy, would anyone have started data collection that far in advance? Additional: Would long term stability of rings around Pluto be more likely considering such rings would have resonances across their width from Charon? (and to a lesser extent from the new moons) Such 'curbs' may have restrained material from processes that tend to dissipate rings (such as dynamical ring spreading) and left them for us to discover. Would dark tenuous rings be excluded by the existing stellar occultation data? I have no info on the geometry of those encounters, and I don't know if there were more than 2 or 3 recorded. So do we have a 'toe in the door' to hope for rings in the Plutonian system? |
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