New Horizons photographed all five satellites of Pluto

    Satellites of Pluto
    Photo: NASA

    Space Station New Horizons continues to delight scientists and everyone who follows the news of astronautics and astronomy. This time, the device photographed not only Pluto, but also all its satellites (in any case, everything that scientists know at the moment).

    There are five such satellites. The first is Charon, the largest satellite that was discovered first, back in 1978. The diameter of Charon is 1200 km, which is half the diameter of Pluto. The following satellites were discovered Hydra and Nikta. The discovery was made after analyzing photographs of the Hubble Orbital Telescope taken in 2005. The last to be discovered were Kerber and Styx. So, with the help of the same Hubble, Kerber was opened in June 2011, and Styx in July 2012. The diameters of the last two satellites are only a couple of tens of kilometers.

    New Horizons photographed Charon in July 2013, Hydra and Nikta in July 2014 and January 2015. Now they have taken photos of Styx and Kreber using the camera’s most sensitive camera, called Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI). Pictures were taken from April 25 to May 1. Sequence - Five 10-second shutter images compiled together. Images were processed in order to remove the "extra" objects, among which the satellites of Pluto were lost.



    By the way, Kerber is visible on all images, but Styx is not visible on the first photo, but it is already visible on other images. Pictures taken from a distance of 88 million kilometers.

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