Planetary Society logo
  • “Exploration is in our nature.” - Carl Sagan

Bruce Murray Space Image Library

New Horizons' first view of Kerberos and Styx

New Horizons' first view of Kerberos and Styx
New Horizons' first view of Kerberos and Styx This animation is composed of four sets of images taken between April 25 and May 1, 2015 at a distance of roughly 90 million kilometers from Pluto. Each observation consists of five 10-second exposures that have been added together to make the image in the left panel. Images were extensively processed to reduce the bright glare of Pluto and Charon and largely remove the dense field of background stars (center and right panels). This reveals the faint satellites, whose positions and orbits - along with those of brighter moons Nix and Hydra - are given in the right panel. Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra orbit at 42,000; 49,000; 58,000; and 65,000 kilometers away from the Pluto-Charon barycenter, respectively. NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI