LOS ANGELES — There’s something lurking around distant and icy dwarf planet Pluto: a fifth moon.
A team of scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope said Wednesday it has discovered the tiniest moon yet around Pluto. That brings the number of known Pluto moons to five.
“We’re not finished searching yet,” said Hal Weaver of Johns Hopkins University, who thinks there may be more lurking.
The mini-moon is estimated to be 6 to 15 miles across, smaller than the one scientists spotted last year, which is 8 to 21 miles wide. Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, is about 650 miles across.
Until the newly found moon gets a name, it will be known as P5.
A NASA spacecraft named New Horizons is speeding toward Pluto, where it will arrive in 2015. When New Horizons launched in 2006, Pluto was a full-fledged planet, but astronomers have since demoted it to dwarf planet. The Associated Press
