New Horizons Spots Pluto's Elusive Moons

NASA reports that the images, assembled into the seven-frame movie above, are the first of a series of long-exposure images to be taken by New Horizon's Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) through early March.

They will help astronomers better understand the moons' orbits, and more should come into view as the spacecraft draws closer. As things stand, the moons Styx and Kerberos are hidden behind the glare of Pluto and its largest moon Charon - which caused a spike of overexposure (as can been seen in the images). That glare should diminish as New Horizons changes angles and prepares for its close-encounter with the planetoid.

Interestingly, Nix and Hydra are reltively new to the astronomer scene, only being desciovered by Hubble scientists back in 2005. Each moon is thought to be between 25 and 95 miles (approximately 40- 150 kilometers) in diameter, but scientists won't know their sizes more precisely until New Horizons obtains close-up pictures of both of them in July.

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