Oleg Zabluda's blog
Sunday, October 14, 2012
 
In 1978 James Christy, using the 1.55-meter telescope at the United States Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station,...
In 1978 James Christy, using the 1.55-meter telescope at the United States Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station, discovered a moon of Pluto, at that time called S/1978 P1. He wanted to name it after his wife Charlene. But at that time, Pluto was still a planet, and a  planet's moon couldn't be named after people, especially somebody's wife. His colleges pleaded with him to name it Persephone, Pluto's wife, but he was hell-bent on naming it after his own wife and called it Charon (maliciously incorrectly pronounced "Sharon" [2]).

In 2005, New Horizons mission discovered two more satellites of Pluto S/2005 P1 and S/2005 P2 and called the former Hydra (after the nine-headed [3] serpent from Lerna which famously battled Hercules) and the latter Nix (after the goddess of darkness and night and mother of Charon). Their initials together (NH) refer to the New Horizons, an old Pluto tradition, starting with PL=Percival Lowell himself.

Later, two more moons were discovered - S/2011 P1 and S/2012 P1. If the stupid International Astronomical Union, which has no business sticking it's collective nose into [dwarf] planetary science, again doesn't name any after Persephone, they are in big trouble after they all inevitably get to Hades.

[1] https://plus.google.com/112065430692128821190/posts/LabhwJS9qQv
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charon_(moon)#Name
[3] The nine heads of Hydra are a reference to Pluto's tenure as the ninth dwarf planet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moons_of_Pluto
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moons_of_Pluto

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