EMBARGOED UNTIL: 9:00 am (EST) March 10, 2006

PHOTO NO.: STScI-PRC06-15

HUBBLE'S LATEST LOOK AT PLUTO'S MOONS SUPPORTS A COMMON BIRTH

The latest NASA Hubble Space Telescope images of Pluto's two newly
discovered satellites reveal that the new moons have the same color
as Charon. All three of Pluto's satellites reflect the Sun's light
equally across the visible spectrum and have essentially the same
color as Earth's moon. Pluto, in contrast, has a reddish hue. The
common color of the moons further reinforces the idea that all three
moons were born from a single titanic collision between Pluto and
another similarly sized Kuiper Belt object billions of years ago.
The color exposures were made on March 2nd in both red (F606W) and
blue (F435W) filters using Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys.
The Pluto team hopes to make further observations in more color
filters to more precisely characterize the moons.

For electronic images and additional information, visit:

http://hubblesite.org/news/2006/15

http://www.jhuapl.edu/newscenter/pressreleases/2006/060310.asp

For more information, contact:

Ray Villard, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.,
(phone) 410-338-4514, (e-mail) villard@stsci.edu or

Michael Buckley, JHU Applied Physics Laboratory, (phone)
240-228-7536 or 443-778-7536, (e-mail) michael.buckley@jhuapl.edu or

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation
between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). The Space Telescope
Science Institute in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. The
Institute is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for
Research in Astronomy, Inc., Washington.