Kerberos revealed: Pluto's smallest moon takes bizarre shape

Source: Christian Science Monitor

Kerberos revealed: Pluto's smallest moon takes bizarre shape

By Michael Holtz, Staff writer OCTOBER 23, 2015

Keberos, the smallest of Pluto’s four moons, defied expectations when images of it taken by NASA’s New Horizons arrived on Earth earlier this week.

The moon appears to be smaller than scientists expected and has a highly reflective surface, observations that disprove predictions made before the Pluto flyby in July.

“Once again, the Pluto system has surprised us,” said New Horizons project scientist Hal Weaver, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland, in a statement released on Thursday by NASA.

The new images, which arrived Tuesday, show that Kerberos has a double-lobed shape. The larger lobe is approximately five miles across and the smaller lobe approximately three miles across.

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