Related papers: On the Origin of Pluto's Minor Moons, Nix and Hydr…
Pluto's recently discovered minor moons, Nix and Hydra, have almost circular orbits, and are nearly coplanar with Charon, Pluto's major moon. This is surprising because tidal interactions with Pluto are too weak to damp their…
The orbits of Pluto's four small satellites (Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra) are nearly circular and coplanar with the orbit of the large satellite Charon, with orbital periods nearly in the ratios 3:1, 4:1, 5:1, and 6:1 with Charon's…
The formation of Pluto's small satellites - Styx, Nix, Keberos and Hydra - remains a mystery. Their orbits are nearly circular and are near mean-motion resonances and nearly coplanar with Charon's orbit. One scenario suggests that they all…
The New Horizons mission has provided resolved measurements of Pluto's moons Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra. All four are small, with equivalent spherical diameters of $\approx$40 km for Nix and Hydra and ~10 km for Styx and Kerberos. They…
We present a detailed survey of the dynamical structure of the phase space around the new moons of the Pluto - Charon system. The spatial elliptic restricted three-body problem was used as model and stability maps were created by chaos…
The Pluto system provides a unique local laboratory for the study of binaries with multiple low mass companions. In this paper, we study the orbital stability of P4, the most recently discovered moon in the Pluto system. This newfound…
During 2005-2012, images from Hubble Space Telescope (HST) revealed four moons orbiting Pluto-Charon (Weaver et al 2006, Showalter et al 2011, 2012). Although their orbits and geometric shapes are well-known, the 2$\sigma$ uncertainties in…
Motivated by the New Horizons mission, we consider how Pluto's small satellites -- currently Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra -- grow in debris from the giant impact that forms the Pluto-Charon binary. After the impact, Pluto and Charon…
Four small moons (Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra) are at present known to orbit around the barycenter of Pluto and Charon, which are themselves considered a binary dwarf-planet due to their relatively high mass ratio. The central,…
We consider the formation of satellites around the Pluto-Charon binary. An early collision between the two partners likely produced the binary and a narrow ring of debris, out of which arose the moons Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra. How the…
New Horizons mission observations show that the small satellites Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra, of the Pluto-Charon system, have not tidally spun-down to near synchronous spin states and have high obliquities with respect to their orbit…
The Pluto-Charon (PC) pair is usually thought of as a binary in the dual synchronous state, which is the endpoint of its tidal evolution. The discovery of the small circumbinary moons, Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra, placed close to the…
Context. The orbits of the four small moons in the Pluto-Charon system, Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra, are circumbinary, as the former form a binary dwarf planet. Consequently, the orbit of each one of them is characterized by a number of…
We consider a scenario where the small satellites of Pluto and Charon grew within a disk of debris from an impact between Charon and a trans-Neptunian Object (TNO). After Charon's orbital motion boosts the debris into a disk-like structure,…
A four-body orbit solution for the Pluto system yields GM values of 870.3 +/- 3.7, 101.4 +/- 2.8, 0.039 +/- 0.034, and 0.021 +/- 0.042 km3 sec-2 for Pluto, Charon, Nix, and Hydra, respectively. Assuming a Charon-like density of 1.63 gm…
In 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto and its moon Charon, providing the first clear look at the surface of Charon. New Horizons images revealed an ancient surface, a large, intricate canyon system, and many fractures, among…
Impacts of micrometeoroids on the surfaces of Nix and Hydra can produced dust particles and form a ring around Pluto. However, dissipative forces, such as the solar radiation pressure, can lead the particles into collisions in a very short…
Pluto's system of 5 known satellites are in a puzzling orbital configuration. Each of the four small satellites are on low-eccentricity and low-inclination orbits situated near a mean motion resonance with the largest satellite Charon. The…
It is usually taken for granted that mutual synchronisation of a tidal two-body system is attained through tidal recession, assuming the reduced Hill sphere is not reached. However, synchronisation can be achieved also via tidal approach,…
A giant collision is believed to be at the origin of the Pluto-Charon system. As a result, the initial orbit and spins after impact may have substantially differed from those observed today. More precisely, the distance at periapse may have…