Tiny Planet, Tiny Moons

Pluto may not be getting any closer, but it's certainly getting a lot more interesting after scientists confirmed the discovery of two new moons last week. In this Hubble Space Telescope image, Pluto is the largest and brightest object at the center of the picture. Its previously known moon, Charon, is just to the lower right, with the two new moons, which are much smaller, showing as tiny dots to the right. Astronomers have not yet named the moons. New Horizons, a spacecraft that was launched in January, will study Pluto and all of its moons when it flies past the planet in 2015. [Credit: NASA/ESA/H. Weaver (JHU/APL)/A. Stern (SwRI)/HST Pluto Companion Search Team]