Moons of Pluto while searching for Plutonian rings. Styx, announced on 7 July 2012, was discovered while looking for potential hazards for "New Horizons". Charon is about half the diameter of Pluto and is so massive (nearly one eighth of the mass of Pluto) that the system's barycenter lies between them, approximately 960 km above Pluto's surface. Charon and Pluto are also tidally locked, so that they always present the same face toward each other. The IAU General Assembly in August 2006 considered a proposal that Pluto and Charon be reclassified as a double planet, but the proposal was abandoned. Pluto's four small
Eris (dwarf planet) object was classified as a dwarf planet, because there is already an asteroid with that name, 399 Persephone. With the dispute resolved, the discovery team proposed "Eris" on September 6, 2006. On September 13, 2006 this name was accepted as the official name by the IAU. Brown decided that, because the object had been considered a planet for so long, it deserved a name from Greek or Roman mythology, like the other planets. The asteroids had taken the vast majority of Graeco-Roman names. "Eris", whom Brown described as his favorite goddess, had fortunately escaped inclusion. The name in part reflects