Nix (formal designation: (134340) Pluto II) is one of the four moons of Pluto, it was discovered along with Hydra (the outermost moon of Pluto) by astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope on 15 May 2005.[1]
It has a diameter of 49.8 kilometers (30.9 miles) across it's largest dimension.[2]
Was named after Nyx, the greek goddess of the night.[3]
Nix is the third moon of Pluto by distance, Nix's orbit it's between the moons Styx and Kerberos.[4][5]
Like their other moons, Nix was photographed by the space probe, New Horizons in July, 2015.[6] This images reveal a reddish area, that is likely an impact crater.[7]
Discovery[]
Discovery images of Nix and Hydra.
Nix was indepently discovered by Max Mutchler and Andrew Steff, both members of the Pluto Companion Search Team, using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST).[8]
The New Horizons Team suspected that Pluto and Charon might be acompanied by other moons, so they used the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to search the faint moons in 2015.[9] Since Nix's brightness is 5000 times fainter than Pluto, long exposure photos were taken to find it.[10]
The discovery images were taken to May 15, 2005 to May 18, 2005, but the discovery was announced on 31 October, 2005 after precovery archival images of Hubble Space Telescope (HST) from 2002.[11] The two new moons of Pluto were subsequently provisionally designated S/2005 P 1 for Hydra and S/2005 P 2 for Nix. The moons were refered as "P1" and "P2", respectively by the discovery team.[12]
Naming[]
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Hubble image of Pluto's moons (annotated)
The name "Nix" was approved by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) and was announced on 21 June, 2006 along with the name of "Hydra"
References[]
- ↑ https://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Page/Planets
- ↑ https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/aaa486
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20220521001103/https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/plutos_moons.html
- ↑ https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aad1815
- ↑ https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Pluto-system%3A-Initial-results-from-its-by-New-Stern-Bagenal/d66b125cf23f2b06d7ba717fdbb00e73d620cf08
- ↑ https://www.universetoday.com/articles/plutos-moon-nix
- ↑ https://blogs.nasa.gov/pluto/2015/10/05/plutos-small-moons-nix-and-hydra/
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20220521001103/https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/plutos_moons.html
- ↑ https://www.google.com.pe/books/edition/Chasing_New_Horizons/7NNSDwAAQBAJ?hl=es-419, "Chapter 7: Bringing It All Together"
- ↑ https://science.nasa.gov/dwarf-planets/pluto/moons/nix/
- ↑ http://hubblesite.org/news_release/news/2005-19
- ↑ http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/iauc/08600/08625.html