Station New Horizons photographed the last of the satellites of Pluto: Kerber



    This week, the New Horizons interplanetary station sent photos of Pluto's small satellite, Kerber. This picture is final - now all the satellites of Pluto are photographed, and these photos are being studied by scientists. Some conclusions about Kerber have already been made. So, scientists realized that the size of the satellite is even smaller than expected. Plus, this celestial body has a high albedo, which is also a surprise for specialists.

    “Once again, the Pluto system surprised us,” said one of the project’s team of scientists. New data show that Kerber has an irregular shape, it consists of two parts, with most of them measuring 8 kilometers and 5 kilometers smaller. Perhaps, experts say, Kerber formed from two small objects that stuck together.

    The reflectivity of the Kerber surface is almost the same as that of the other small moons of Pluto (approximately 50%). Based on these data, we can conclude that the surface of Kerber is covered with relatively clean water ice.


    Photos of all satellites of Pluto

    Before the New Horizons approached Pluto, scientists studied its system using the Hubble telescope. By analyzing the behavior of other satellites of Pluto, scientists tried to find out the mass of Kerber. As it turned out, the effect of Kerber on other satellites was unexpectedly strong, while considering the satellite was quite difficult, due to the fact that the object is quite dim. Experts have suggested that this moon of Pluto is rather large and massive, and the low brightness of the object is supposedly due to the fact that the surface of Kerber is covered with dark matter. It turned out that this hypothesis was incorrect - Kerber is very small, and the reason why he influences other Pluto satellites so much is still unclear.

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