Hydra

Hydra is a natural satellite of Pluto, with a diameter of approximately across its longest dimension. It is the second-largest moon of Pluto, being slightly larger than Nix. Hydra was discovered along with Nix by astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope on 15 May 2005, and was named after the Hydra, the nine-headed underworld serpent in Greek mythology. By distance, Hydra is the fifth and outermost moon of Pluto, orbiting beyond Pluto's fourth moon Kerberos. Hydra has a highly reflective surface caused by the presence of water ice, similar to other Plutonian moons. Hydra's reflectivity is intermediate, in between those of Pluto and Charon. The New Horizons spacecraft imaged Pluto and its moons in July 2015 and returned multiple images of Hydra. Discovery Members of the New Horizons team suspected that Pluto and Charon might be accompanied by other small, distant moons, weakly bound to the Pluto system. They used the Hubble Space Telescope to test this hypothesis. This led to the discovery of Nix and Hydra – both surprisingly close to Pluto/Charon – and that no significant moons existed in Pluto's extended sphere of influence.