A tiny, bright, double-lobed moon orbiting between Nix and Hydra.
Kerberos was discovered in 2011 with the Hubble Space Telescope. It orbits between Nix and Hydra and takes a little more than 32 Earth days to travel once around the Pluto system. New Horizons found Kerberos to be much smaller and brighter than many pre-flyby estimates had suggested.
Images from New Horizons show a double-lobed shape, suggesting that Kerberos may have formed when two smaller bodies merged.
Before the 2015 flyby, Kerberos was expected to be relatively dark. Instead, New Horizons found a highly reflective surface similar to those of Pluto’s other small moons, strongly suggesting a coating of relatively clean water ice.
NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System places Pluto in its wider solar system setting and lets you examine the Pluto–Charon system in three dimensions. Rotate the view, zoom in or out, and use the time controls to follow the modeled motion of the system.
NASA Eyes is an interactive visualization provided by NASA/JPL and loads from eyes.nasa.gov. If the embedded view is unavailable, use the full-screen link above.
Pluto has five known moons. Charon is by far the largest and forms a closely coupled pair with Pluto. Farther out, the four much smaller moons—Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra—follow nearly circular orbits around the Pluto–Charon system.
Diagram is schematic; sizes and orbital distances are not to scale.
NASA Science provides mission background, observations and image collections; Wikipedia offers a broader reference overview with citations.
