Moons of Pluto 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 from Pluto, they are Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra. Charon, the largest of the five moons, is mutually tidally locked with Pluto, and is massive enough that Pluto–Charon is sometimes considered a double dwarf planet. The innermost and largest moon, Charon, was discovered by James Christy on 22 June 1978, nearly half a century after Pluto was discovered. This led to a substantial revision in estimates of Pluto's size, which had previously assumed that
Definition of planet IAU General Assembly meeting in Prague in August 2006, and on August 24, the IAU put a final draft to a vote, which combined elements from two of the three proposals. It essentially created a medial classification between "planet" and "rock" (or, in the new parlance, "small Solar System body"), called "dwarf planet" and placed Pluto in it, along with Ceres and Eris. The vote was passed, with 424 astronomers taking part in the ballot. The IAU also resolved that ""planets" and "dwarf planets" are two distinct classes of objects", meaning that dwarf planets, despite their name, would not be