Pluto's fourth moon
Jul. 20th, 2011 11:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mmcirvinI guess I should mention it: Pluto has a fourth moon.
Judging from inner-solar-system experience, it's remarkable that such a small object (smaller than our own Moon) would have such an extensive system of moons of its own, one so big in comparison to Pluto that the barycenter of the system is actually outside of Pluto, and three smaller ones. Several other Kuiper Belt objects, like Haumea and Eris, are known to have moons, but these things are hard to detect. The fact that Pluto, the most-studied one, has at least four makes me wonder if the normal state of affairs for a fair-sized Kuiper Belt object is to be surrounded by a whole swarm of them.
Judging from inner-solar-system experience, it's remarkable that such a small object (smaller than our own Moon) would have such an extensive system of moons of its own, one so big in comparison to Pluto that the barycenter of the system is actually outside of Pluto, and three smaller ones. Several other Kuiper Belt objects, like Haumea and Eris, are known to have moons, but these things are hard to detect. The fact that Pluto, the most-studied one, has at least four makes me wonder if the normal state of affairs for a fair-sized Kuiper Belt object is to be surrounded by a whole swarm of them.