Moons of Pluto facts for kids

Image from the Hubble Telescope showing Pluto and its three largest moons.

Pluto, a small dwarf planet far away, has five moons that orbit around it. The biggest and most famous moon is Charon. It's almost a quarter the size of Pluto itself! The other four moons are much smaller: Nix, Hydra, Kerberos, and Styx. These moons are all part of Pluto's interesting family in space.

Discovering Pluto's Moons

Sizes of the objects in the Plutonian system.

Scientists have been discovering Pluto's moons over many years. The first and largest moon found was Charon. James Christy discovered Charon on June 22, 1978.

Later, in May 2005, the Hubble Space Telescope helped scientists find two more moons. These were named Nix and Hydra. Then, in 2011 and 2012, two even smaller moons were discovered. They were named Kerberos and Styx.

Images for kids

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  The small moons to approximate scale, compared to Charon.

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  Pluto and Charon, to scale. Photo taken by New Horizons on approach.

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  Discovery image of Styx, overlaid with orbits of the satellite system

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  The relative masses of Pluto's moons. Charon dominates the system. Nix and Hydra are barely visible and Styx and Kerberos are invisible at this scale.

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  Simulated view of Charon transiting Pluto on 25 February 1989.

See also

In Spanish: Satélites de Plutón para niños