Just goes to show how much we still have to learn about our own solar system!
QuoteThe discovery of a new moon around Pluto hints that a NASA spacecraft streaking toward the dwarf planet could uncover more surprises when it finally gets there.
The tiny new moon — announced today (July 20) and called P4 for now — brings the number of known Pluto satellites to four. And the find, made with the Hubble Space Telescope, suggests that NASA's New Horizons probe could make some big discoveries, too, when it makes a close flyby of Pluto in 2015, researchers said.
"The discovery of P4 just reinforces what we knew before: This is going to be completely new territory," said Hal Weaver, New Horizons project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. "We can't wait."
http://www.livescience.com/15161-pluto-moon-foreshadows-surprises-nasa-probe-en-route.html (http://www.livescience.com/15161-pluto-moon-foreshadows-surprises-nasa-probe-en-route.html)
Well, I think we can assume by 2015 that the tally of planets (and planetoids) will change. Ceres and Vesta may get a promotion.
sweet! always something new in the astronomy world.