North becomes south: Life on Pluto’s topsy-turvy moons revealed by Hubble

Pluto’s outer moons are continuously toppled and turned as they battle the joint gravitational forces of their parent planet and its primary moon Charon, a US study has showed. The report, published in the journal Nature, was based on ten years of observations of Pluto from the Hubble space telescope. The findings should help scientists figure out how Pluto and its entourage of moons formed, and provide insight into the solar system’s origins.

It as if Pluto and Charon are two weights at the end of a dumbbell, two very unbalanced weights, and that dumbbell is rotating. The four other moons are responding to the gravity fields of both objects

Astronomer Mark Showalter

A computer simulation of Pluto’s moon Nix, based on images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, showed the body tumbling, wobbling and flipping over. Astronomer Mark Showalter said: "It’s a very strange world. You literally would not know if the sun is coming up tomorrow. The sun might rise in the west and set in the east  or the north. If you have real estate on the north pole of Nix, you might suddenly discover one day that you’re on the south pole instead.“

The four other moons are responding to the gravity fields of both objects.

km of Pluto on July

Science Pluto moons