Word: pluto
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...recent citing of Charon, believed to be a moon of Pluto, challenges theories about the origins and characteristics of that planet, Harvard astronomers said yesterday...
...miles beyond Saturn. Its systems, sustained by a tiny nuclear power source, were still operating; but other than to record an occasional micrometeorite hit, there was little for Pioneer to do. Yet the little spaceship is destined for even greater adventures. Some time in 1993, Pioneer will pass beyond Pluto, leave the solar system and head for the stars...
...science-fiction convention you've seen them in a less egregious form: short, bad complexion, slightly overweight, greasy hair, glasses, copy of Stranger in a Strange Landdiscreetly folded over an otherwise prominent hard-on. At least they have something to talk about: the possibilities of sending Isaac Asimov to Pluto, or the time Mr. Sulu's left ball was shot off by Klingons. It's worse at Dracula conventions: the plastic fangs they wear inhibit conversation, and instead of meeting tall, gaunt, Continental types they find only themselves, or else fat, greasy middle-aged men. The shock of recognition...
Harrington reckons that the moon (which Christy has tentatively named Charon after the mythological boatman who ferried the souls of the dead across the River Styx to the underworld ruled over by the god Pluto) is about 800 km (500 miles) in diameter. It lies in Pluto's equatorial plane and circles the planet once every 6 days 9 hr. and 17 min.-an interval identical to Pluto's own period of rotation. Hence, an observer on one side of Pluto would always see the moon in the same position in the sky. On the other side...
Until the mid-'60s, Pluto was thought to be a planet with roughly earthlike dimensions. Not so, say the Naval Observatory astronomers. Using the presence of the moon and knowledge of its orbital characteristics, they have calculated that Pluto's diameter is about one-fifth that of the earth's, its density perhaps less than one-third and, most significant, its mass only .2%. This means that their shrunken Pluto may not have enough gravitational pull to account for suspected irregularities, previously attributed to it, in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune, the seventh and eighth planets...