Mr Spock's home world will not give its name to a moon of Pluto, despite the best efforts of Star Trek actor William Shatner. Instead, the names of Pluto's fourth and fifth moons will keep up a Greco-Roman mythological theme tied to the underworld and be called Kerberos, after a three-headed hellhound and Styx, a river in the underworld. Read more
"Vulcan" has topped a public vote to name two recently discovered moons of Pluto. The choice will delight Star Trek fans; Vulcan is the home planet of Spock, science officer on the starship Enterprise. Read more
'Vulcan' and 'Cerberus' Win Pluto Moon Naming Poll
The votes are in, and it looks like 'Vulcan' could be the new name for one of Pluto's smallest moons. After weeks of online ballot casting by people around the world, the poll asking the public to name two of Pluto's moons - currently called P4 and P5 - ended today (Feb. 25). Read more
The best name for P4 is Proserpine or Proserpeina, for Pluto's wife. Cerberus is good, but a wife comes before a dog, sorry, buddy. Persephone is Greek, so she was the wife of Hades. I think if a fifth moon is found, Cerberus would be right, then. Congrats on the discovery, Team Pluto!
NEW SATELLITE OF (134340) PLUTO: S/2011 (134340) 1
M. R. Showalter, SETI Institute; and D. P. Hamilton, University of Maryland -- on behalf of a team that includes S. A. Stern (Southwest Research Institute), H. A. Weaver (Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University), and A. J. Steffl and L. A. Young (Southwest Research Institute)) -- report the discovery of a new satellite of Pluto. The object, provisionally designated S/2011 (134340) 1, was detected in five separate sets of images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope WFC3/UVIS: two sets on 2011 June 28.6 UT, two on July 3.4, and one on July 18.92. The body is visible in individual 8-minute exposures, and S/N > 5 when the five images of each set are co-added. On June 28, the satellite was 2.48" from the center of Pluto in p.a. 335°; on July 3, it was 2.01" from Pluto at p.a. 27°; on July 18, it was 2.035" from Pluto at p.a. 198.1°. The satellite's magnitude is V = 26.1 ±0.3, making the object about 10 percent as bright as Pluto II (Nix). The diameter depends on the assumed geometric albedo: 14 km if p_v = 0.35, or 40 km if p_v = 0.04. The motion is consistent with a body traveling on a circular, equatorial orbit. The inferred mean motion is 11.2° ±0.1° per day (P = 32.1 ±0.3 days), and the projected radial distance from Pluto is 59000 ±2000 km, placing the satellite between the orbits of Pluto II (Nix) and III (Hydra).
Discovered natural satellite of a new dwarf planet (134340) Pluto - reports the latest issue of the International Astronomical Union telegram. Electronic telegram No. 2769 of the International Astronomical Union just reported the discovery of the new moon of Pluto, which received the provisional designation S/2011 (134340) 1 Read more (Polish)
Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have identified another moon around the dwarf planetPluto. It becomes the fourth object known to be circling the distant world after the long-recognised Charon and recently observed Nix and Hydra satellites. Scientists are temporarily calling the new moon P4 and estimate its diameter to be 13 to 34 km. Read more
Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope discovered a fourth moon orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto. The tiny, new satellite, temporarily designated P4, was uncovered in a Hubble survey searching for rings around the dwarf planet. Read more
These two images, taken about a week apart by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, show four moons orbiting the distant, icy dwarf planet Pluto. The green circle in both snapshots marks the newly discovered moon, temporarily dubbed P4, found by Hubble in June. P4 is the smallest moon yet found around Pluto, with an estimated diameter of 13 to 34 km. By comparison, Pluto's largest moon Charon is 1,043 km across. Nix and Hydra are 32 to 113 km wide. The new moon lies between the orbits of Nix and Hydra, two satellites discovered by Hubble in 2005. P4 completes an orbit around Pluto roughly every 31 days. The new moon was first seen in a photo taken with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 on June 28, 2011. The sighting was confirmed in follow-up Hubble observations taken July 3 and July 18. P4, Nix, and Hydra are so small and so faint that scientists combined short and long exposures to create this image of Pluto and its entire moon system. The speckled background is camera "noise" produced during the long exposures. The linear features are imaging artifacts. The Hubble observations will help NASA's New Horizons mission, scheduled to fly through the Pluto system in 2015.