Firstpost
  • Home
  • Video Shows
    Vantage Firstpost America Firstpost Africa First Sports
  • World
    US News
  • Explainers
  • News
    India Opinion Cricket Tech Entertainment Sports Health Photostories
  • Asia Cup 2025
Apple Incorporated Modi ji Justin Trudeau Trending

Sections

  • Home
  • Live TV
  • Videos
  • Shows
  • World
  • India
  • Explainers
  • Opinion
  • Sports
  • Cricket
  • Health
  • Tech/Auto
  • Entertainment
  • Web Stories
  • Business
  • Impact Shorts

Shows

  • Vantage
  • Firstpost America
  • Firstpost Africa
  • First Sports
  • Fast and Factual
  • Between The Lines
  • Flashback
  • Live TV

Events

  • Raisina Dialogue
  • Independence Day
  • Champions Trophy
  • Delhi Elections 2025
  • Budget 2025
  • US Elections 2024
  • Firstpost Defence Summit
Trending:
  • Nepal protests
  • Nepal Protests Live
  • Vice-presidential elections
  • iPhone 17
  • IND vs PAK cricket
  • Israel-Hamas war
fp-logo
Pluto's outer moons continuously topple and turn, says new Nasa study
Whatsapp Facebook Twitter
Whatsapp Facebook Twitter
Apple Incorporated Modi ji Justin Trudeau Trending

Sections

  • Home
  • Live TV
  • Videos
  • Shows
  • World
  • India
  • Explainers
  • Opinion
  • Sports
  • Cricket
  • Health
  • Tech/Auto
  • Entertainment
  • Web Stories
  • Business
  • Impact Shorts

Shows

  • Vantage
  • Firstpost America
  • Firstpost Africa
  • First Sports
  • Fast and Factual
  • Between The Lines
  • Flashback
  • Live TV

Events

  • Raisina Dialogue
  • Independence Day
  • Champions Trophy
  • Delhi Elections 2025
  • Budget 2025
  • US Elections 2024
  • Firstpost Defence Summit
  • Home
  • World
  • Pluto's outer moons continuously topple and turn, says new Nasa study

Pluto's outer moons continuously topple and turn, says new Nasa study

FP Archives • June 4, 2015, 15:37:59 IST
Whatsapp Facebook Twitter

A computer simulation of Pluto’s moon Nix, based on images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, showed the body tumbling, wobbling and flipping over.

Advertisement
Subscribe Join Us
Add as a preferred source on Google
Prefer
Firstpost
On
Google
Pluto's outer moons continuously topple and turn, says new Nasa study

  Cape Canaveral: Pluto’s outer moons are continuously toppled and turned as they battle the joint gravitational forces of their parent planet and its primary moon Charon, a study published on Wednesday showed. “It as if Pluto and Charon are two weights at the end of a dumbbell, two very unbalanced weights, and that dumbbell is rotating. The four other moons are responding to the gravity fields of both objects,” astronomer Mark Showalter told reporters on a conference call. [caption id=“attachment_2279504” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] ![Representational image of Pluto. Reuters image](https://images.firstpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Pluto-Reuters.jpg) Representational image of Pluto. Reuters image[/caption] The study, published in this week’s journal Nature, should help scientists figure out how Pluto and its entourage of moons formed and provide insight into the solar system’s origins. NASA’s New Horizon’s spacecraft is due to fly within about 7,750 (12,500 km) of Pluto on 14 July. A computer simulation of Pluto’s moon Nix, based on images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, showed the body tumbling, wobbling and flipping over. “It’s a very strange world. You literally would not know if the sun is coming up tomorrow. The sun might rise in the west and set in the east … or the north. If you have real estate on the north pole of Nix, you might suddenly discover one day that you’re on the south pole instead,” said Showalter. The study was conducted by Showalter, who is with the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, and Douglas Hamilton of the University of Maryland. Pluto was once considered the ninth planet in the solar system, but it was striped of that title in 2006 after astronomers discovered several similar icy bodies in the Kuiper Belt region, about 50 times farther away from the sun than Earth. Even before its demotion, Pluto was a planetary oddball, just 1,460 miles (2,350 km) in diameter, which is smaller than Earth’s moon, and circling the sun in a tilted, oval-shaped orbit that occasionally reaches inside neighbour Neptune’s path. Scientists suspect Pluto, Charon and its four small moons, all discovered in Hubble images after New Horizons launched, formed after an ancient collision of two icy bodies. That theory will be tested with the new evidence of the tumbling, wobbly moons, and observations by New Horizon. New Horizons, launched in January 2006, will be the first spacecraft to visit Pluto. It will then head into the Kuiper Belt for a possible flyby of a second object in 2019. Reuters

Tags
NewsTracker Nasa Pluto Moons Hubble Telescope
End of Article
Written by FP Archives

see more

Latest News
Find us on YouTube
Subscribe
End of Article

Impact Shorts

Nepal: Oli to continue until new PM is sworn in, nation on edge as all branches of govt torched

Nepal: Oli to continue until new PM is sworn in, nation on edge as all branches of govt torched

Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli remains caretaker PM amid chaos in Nepal. Protesters torched parliament, executive seat, Supreme Court, and presidential residence. President Paudel calls for dialogue as violence continues across the country.

More Impact Shorts

Top Stories

Israel targets top Hamas leaders in Doha; Qatar, Iran condemn strike as violation of sovereignty

Israel targets top Hamas leaders in Doha; Qatar, Iran condemn strike as violation of sovereignty

Nepal: Oli to continue until new PM is sworn in, nation on edge as all branches of govt torched

Nepal: Oli to continue until new PM is sworn in, nation on edge as all branches of govt torched

Who is CP Radhakrishnan, India's next vice-president?

Who is CP Radhakrishnan, India's next vice-president?

Israel informed US ahead of strikes on Hamas leaders in Doha, says White House

Israel informed US ahead of strikes on Hamas leaders in Doha, says White House

Israel targets top Hamas leaders in Doha; Qatar, Iran condemn strike as violation of sovereignty

Israel targets top Hamas leaders in Doha; Qatar, Iran condemn strike as violation of sovereignty

Nepal: Oli to continue until new PM is sworn in, nation on edge as all branches of govt torched

Nepal: Oli to continue until new PM is sworn in, nation on edge as all branches of govt torched

Who is CP Radhakrishnan, India's next vice-president?

Who is CP Radhakrishnan, India's next vice-president?

Israel informed US ahead of strikes on Hamas leaders in Doha, says White House

Israel informed US ahead of strikes on Hamas leaders in Doha, says White House

Top Shows

Vantage Firstpost America Firstpost Africa First Sports

QUICK LINKS

  • Trump-Zelenskyy meeting
Latest News About Firstpost
Most Searched Categories
  • Web Stories
  • World
  • India
  • Explainers
  • Opinion
  • Sports
  • Cricket
  • Tech/Auto
  • Entertainment
  • IPL 2025
NETWORK18 SITES
  • News18
  • Money Control
  • CNBC TV18
  • Forbes India
  • Advertise with us
  • Sitemap
Firstpost Logo

is on YouTube

Subscribe Now

Copyright @ 2024. Firstpost - All Rights Reserved

About Us Contact Us Privacy Policy Cookie Policy Terms Of Use
Home Video Shorts Live TV