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Space

Scientists Spot Fifth Moon Around Pluto

RIA Novosti

22:50 11/07/2012 MOSCOW, July 11 (RIA Novosti) - Astronomers working with the Hubble Space Telescope on Wednesday announced that they have found a fifth moon circling the dwarf planet Pluto.

“Just announced: Pluto has some company — We've discovered a 5th moon using the Hubble Space Telescope!” tweeted Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo.

The new moon is estimated to between 10km and 25km across.

"The moons form a series of neatly nested orbits, a bit like Russian dolls," Mark Showalter from the Seti Institute in Mountain View, US, the leader of the steam that discovered the new moon, told BBC.

The discovery comes almost exactly one year after Hubble spotted Pluto's fourth moon, a tiny body currently called P4.



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