These Hubble Space Telescope images, taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys, reveal Pluto, its large moon Charon, and the planet's two new putative satellites. In the short-exposure image [left], taken June 11, 2002, the candidate moons cannot be seen. They do, however, appear in the middle and right-hand images. Longer exposure times were used to take these images. Pluto and Charon are overexposed in these images, causing the bright streaks or "blooms" that emerge vertically from them. The candidate moons are not overexposed because they are thousands of times less bright than Pluto and Charon. In these unprocessed images, various optical artifacts of the Advanced Camera for Surveys system are visible, such as the radial spokes of light caused by the telescope's optics. The enhanced-color images of Pluto and Charon were constructed by combining images taken in filters near 475 nanometers (blue) and 555 nanometers (green-yellow). The images of the new satellites were taken in a single filter centered near 606 nanometers (yellow), so no color information is available for them.
Credits
NASA, ESA, H. Weaver (JHU/APL), A. Stern (SwRI), and the Hubble Space Telescope Pluto Companion Search Team| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Pluto |
| Object Description | Dwarf Planet |
| Distance | Although its orbit is highly eccentric, Pluto's average distance from the Sun is 39.44 Astronomical Units (A.U.) or roughly 3.6 billion miles (5.9 billion kilometers). |
| Dimensions | Pluto has a diameter of roughly 1,475 miles (2,280 km) at the equator. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | These HST data are from proposal : H.A. Weaver (JHU/APL), M.W. Buie (Lowell Obs.), S.A. Stern, J.R. Spencer, E. Young, and L.A. Young (SwRI); and proposal 9391: M.W. Buie and W.M. Grundy (Lowell Obs.), E. Young, L.A. Young, and S.A. Stern (SwRI). M. Mutchler (STScI) and A.J. Steffl (SwRI) are also on the science team. |
| Exposure Dates | June 11, 2002 (left), May 15, 2005 (center), and May 18, 2005 (right) |
| Filters | ACS/HRC (2002): F475W (B) and F555W (V) ACS/WFC (2005): F606W (V) |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
|
| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |
