| James Christy |
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| CATEGORIES ABOUT JAMES W. CHRISTY | |
| 1938 births | |
| living people | |
| american astronomers | |
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Working at the United States Naval Observatory , he discovered in 1978 that Pluto had a Moon , which he named Charon . The discovery was made by carefully examining an enlargement of a photographic plate of Pluto and noticing it had a very slight bulge on one side. By examining images taken over several successive days, he was able to convince himself that it was a moon. The photographic evidence was considered convincing but not conclusive; however, based on the orbit determined, a series of mutual Eclipse s of Pluto and Charon was predicted and observed, which provided confirmation. In more modern telescopes, such as the Hubble Space Telescope or ground-based telescopes using Adaptive Optics , separate images of Pluto and Charon can very easily be resolved. EXTERNAL LINKS
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