The latest NASA Hubble Space Telescope images of Pluto’s two newly discovered satellites reveal that the new moons have the same color as Charon. All three of Pluto’s satellites reflect the Sun’s light equally across the visible spectrum and have essentially the same color as Earth’s moon. Pluto, in contrast, has a reddish hue. The common color of the moons further reinforces the idea that all three moons were born from a single titanic collision between Pluto and another similarly sized Kuiper Belt object billions of years ago. The color exposures were made on March 2nd in both red (F606W) and blue (F435W) filters using Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. The Pluto team hopes to make further observations in more color filters to more precisely characterize the moons.
For electronic images and additional information, visit:
http://hubblesite.org/news/2006/15 http://www.jhuapl.edu/newscenter/pressreleases/2006/060310.asp
For more information, contact: Ray Villard, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md., (phone) 410-338-4514, (e-mail) villard@stsci.edu or
Michael Buckley, JHU Applied Physics Laboratory, (phone) 240-228-7536 or 443-778-7536, (e-mail) michael.buckley@jhuapl.edu or
Hal Weaver, The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md. (phone) 443-778-8078, (e-mail) hal.weaver@jhuapl.edu or
Alan Stern, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Co., (phone) 303-546-9670, (e-mail) astern@swri.edu .
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. The Institute is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., Washington.
