The Hubble Space Telescope has discovered a fifth moon circling the dwarf planet Pluto.
The new moon, visible as a speck of light in Hubble images, is estimated to be irregular in shape and between 10km and 25km across.
Scientists are intrigued that such a small world can have such a complex collection of satellites.
The moon - known only as P5 - could help shed light on how the Pluto system formed and evolved.
According to one idea, all the moons are relics of a collision between Pluto and another large icy object billions of years ago.
"The moons form a series of neatly nested orbits, a bit like Russian dolls," said Mark Showalter from the Seti Institute in Mountain View, US, the leader of the steam that discovered the new moon.
Pluto's largest moon, Charon, was discovered in 1978. Hubble observations in 2006 uncovered two additional small moons, Nix and Hydra.
In 2011, another moon, known as P4, was found by Hubble.
Provisionally named S/2012 (134340) 1, or P5, the latest moon was detected in nine separate sets of images taken by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 taken during June and July.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18803212#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
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