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Article: Pluto and Charon, the odd couple
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- May 27, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1996 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Eighteen years ago this month, Jim Christy - an astronomer at
the US Naval Observatory in Washington - found that what looked
looked like a pear-shaped Pluto was in fact the combination of two
bodies - Pluto, and its hitherto undiscovered moon. He named his
discovery Charon - not after the ferryman who transported souls
across the River Styx to Pluto's Underworld, but after his wife,
Charlene. Those in the know pronounce it "Sharon", instead of the
classical "Kar-on".
The discovery of Charon cleared up one mystery about Pluto - its
mass. Astronomers believed they had originally tracked the planet
down as a result of its gravitational pull on Uranus and Neptune.
But observations of the ...
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Article: `AN ICY LITTLE DWARF' New photographs of Pluto reveal ...
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel;
March 8, 1996 ;
700+ words
... ... comets or asteroids, Stern said, Pluto is perfectly round, has an atmosphere ... by its own satellite, Charon. At Pluto's distance, even Hubble's powerful ... astronomers must wait for the "Pluto Express," a combined American-Russian ...
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