Pluto in size of Charon and Pluto has prompted some astronomers to call it a double dwarf planet. The system is also unusual among planetary systems in that each is tidally locked to the other, which means that Pluto and Charon always have the same hemisphere facing each other. From any position on either body, the other is always at the same position in the sky, or always obscured. This also means that the rotation period of each is equal to the time it takes the entire system to rotate around its barycenter. In 2007, observations by the Gemini Observatory of
Naming of chemical elements planets, dwarf planets, a few asteroids, our star, our planet, and our Moon. Uranium, neptunium, plutonium, cerium, and palladium were named after Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Ceres, and Pallas respectively, which were at the time of their naming all considered to be planets. (Today, Pluto and Ceres are considered to be dwarf planets, and Pallas is considered to be an asteroid.) The name of the element selenium came from the Greek word for the Moon (Σελήνη, "Selene"). The name helium comes from the Greek word for the Sun (Ἢλιος, "Helios"). This is because the first evidence for helium was in distinctive,