Charon — a mysterious moon of Pluto
How many moons does Pluto have? So far we know of the existence of five natural satellites of this dwarf planet. The last one, Styx, was only discovered in 2012 in images taken by the Hubble Telescope.
On June 22, 1978, astronomer James Christy, an employee of the U.S. Naval Astronomical Observatory, was reviewing images of Pluto. They were taken with a one and a half meter telescope located in Flagstaff. Christy’s task was to accurately calculate the parameters of Pluto’s orbit, at that time still considered a full-fledged planet (this status Pluto lost in 2006 to become one of the dwarf planets).
The pictures were hardly spectacular. They bore little resemblance to the beautiful images of the sky that the Hubble Telescope had been providing for years. In fact, Christy was looking at something that resembled a black blob surrounded by ink splatters. The blob was Pluto, the splatters the stars around it.
Some of the pictures were marked “poor.” Why? Because Pluto had a strange bulge in them. These were thought to be the result of a technical defect in the telescope. There was even a note next to the 1965 photos: “photo of Pluto — elongated”. For thirteen years neither Christy nor any of his colleagues came up with the photographs.
