Moons of Pluto meters per pixel were returned of Nix and up to 1.1 kilometers per pixel of Hydra. Lower-resolution images were returned of Styx and Kerberos. Author Edmond Hamilton referred to three moons of Pluto in his 1940 novel "Calling Captain Future", naming them , , and . Charon was listed as the largest of them. All three moons would not be discovered until the year 1970, according to Hamilton. The real Charon was discovered in 1978. Moons of Pluto The dwarf planet Pluto has five moons down to a detection limit of about 1 km in diameter. In order of distance
Dwarf planet history. On March 6, 2015, the "Dawn" spacecraft began to orbit Ceres, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit a dwarf planet. On July 14, 2015, the "New Horizons" space probe flew by Pluto and its five moons. Dawn has also explored the former dwarf planet Vesta. Phoebe has been explored by Cassini (most recently) and Voyager 2, which also explored Triton. These three are thought to be former dwarf planets and therefore their exploration helps in the study of the evolution of dwarf planets. In the immediate aftermath of the IAU definition of dwarf planet, some scientists expressed their disagreement