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 6a of 2006 recognizes Pluto as "the prototype of a new category of trans-Neptunian objects". The name and precise nature of this category were not specified but left for the IAU to establish at a later date; in the debate leading up to the resolution, the members of the category were variously referred to as "plutons" and "plutonian objects" but neither name was carried forward, perhaps due to objections from geologists that this would create confusion with their "pluton". On June 11, 2008, the IAU Executive Committee announced a name, "plutoid", and a definition: all trans-Neptunian dwarf planets are plutoids.