Scientists recently found that Pluto, the dwarf planet, has not only 3, but actually 4 moons

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Scientists recently found that Pluto, the dwarf planet, has not only 3, but actually 4 moons

On the 20th of July, astronomers announced the existence of another (the fourth) moon around the planet Pluto.
Back in the day, Pluto was thought to be as large as the Earth, but those entire theories about the planet were crushed a couple of years ago, back in 2006, when a new theory about Pluto being a “dwarf planet” appeared. Although up until 1978 astronomers had no idea that Pluto had any satellites, it seems that now it has 4, more than the Earth, Venus, Mars and Mercury have combined. The theories that have emerged about Pluto were so fuzzy, that no one really knows what to think about the planet anymore. Until NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft does not make the first trip close to the planet, sometime in 2015, nothing will be brought to light about Pluto. “This is a whole new kind of planet,” said New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern. “It’s going to blow our doors off.”
For those who do not know, Pluto was discovered back in 1930, when a person called Clyde Tombaugh found it while looking for the notorious “Planet X.” During that time, the planet was reported, thus was thought, to be as large as the Earth, but inaccuracies are only understandable given that the planet was very difficult to detect in those early days. Plus, the planet is about 3.65 billion miles away from the Sun, that is about 39 times farther than Earth is. Then, throughout time, the size of the planet seemed to be reducing by the year and in 1978, when the first moon was discovered, scientists got to thinking that the planet was a lot smaller than they ever thought it would be. The first moon that was discovered is called Charon and is more than half Pluto’s size.
Until the late 1990s, the planet was still under a veil of smoke, as scientists could not determine exactly what the deal was with Pluto. However, in the 1990s, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope showed the first images of the surface of the planet. From those pictures, it was clear that Pluto was more complex than researchers ever thought it would be, with both dark and light areas harbored on it. The 1990s also brought new light on a theory that besides Pluto, there was also a whole new family of planets out there, in the solar system which had never been seen before and which were quite different from anything known up to that time.
Again, in 2005, scientist found out that somewhere twice as far from the Sun as Pluto, there was another planet, called Eris. Eris was thought to be bigger than Pluto, but scientists seem to think now that they are roughly the same size. In 2006, Eris and Pluto were called “dwarf planets,” to be in accord with the new definition of the planet proposed by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), which seemed to be seriously deranged by the fact that more and more things out there in space were called planets. Now, there are only 8 planets left in our solar system. However, the whole change in Pluto’s status has spurred a lot of controversies, especially among scientists who think that the proposed definition is arbitrary and flawed. Even though there are still many discussions on the subject, Pluto has become more and more popular and its history became more and more interesting to scientists.

This is how Pluto looks like now, with all its four moons

What studies have discovered about Pluto was that the planet had an atmosphere. The gas layer is composed by nitrogen, carbon monoxide and methane and it extends to about 3,000 km beyond the planet’s surface. Were it a bit further, it would have reached Charon. Moreover, back in 2005, scientists also discovered that Pluto had not only one or two, but actually three moons – Nix and Hydra being the ones discovered in 2005. Now, a couple of days ago, scientists have come to the conclusion that Pluto is more complex and controversial than they have ever thought it to be and what they discovered was that the planet has actually 4 moons. This new moon is currently being called P4, until another name will come to mind.
Although many surprises have been offered to the scientists by this little planet, they agree on the fact that are still more to come. All scientists involved in researches about the planet seem to think that when the New Horizon mission will begin, new and more interesting thing will come to surface about Pluto. Moreover, scientists hope that during this mission, new things will also be found out about the Kuiper Belt, which still remains a mystery although everyone knows that it is formed from icy bodies. After it passes Pluto, New Horizons is also expected to look at two more objects in the Kuiper Belt. “We now know that there are more Kuiper Belt planets than giant planets and terrestrial planets combined,” said one of the researchers. However, no mission has been made up until now to go and check what the farthest of places. New Horizons, however, will be the first one to do so and hopes are high regarding the information astronomers will bring back home.

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