Out there.

The Hubble Space Telescope just discovered two more moons around Pluto.

Based on their brightness--and assuming that their surfaces are about as reflective as Charon's--the scientists believe the two moons are roughly 38 miles and 29 miles in diameter. Given that they share Pluto's distance from the sun--roughly three billion miles--but are 4,000 times fainter, it is not surprising that the satellites eluded detection until now, the researchers say.

Dubbed S2005 P1 and S2005 P2 while awaiting proper names, the two moons share the same orbital plane as Charon, albeit with much longer orbits. The team thus suspects that they may have formed from the same collision [...] that is theorized to have created the binary Pluto-Charon planetary system. The moons may also be a source for dust that coalesces into rings around Pluto before dispersing. "If Pluto's small moons generate debris rings from impacts on their surfaces, as we predict, it would open up a whole new class of study because it would constitute the first ring system seen around a solid body," notes Bill Merline, team member from the Southwest Research Institute.

On Monday, Cassini will fly by Titan at a distance of about 1100 miles to probe its gravitational field, in hopes of determining whether the moon contains an internal ocean.

The folks operating the Mars rover Spirit are hurrying to gather as much data as possible and maneuver the little guy into optimal position to try to survive another Martian winter and the accompanying decrease in sunlight. It has been checking out a feature known as Home Plate, what might be an old impact crater or volcanic feature and looks like a baseball home plate from orbit and recently sent back this lovely panoramic snapshot of the Barnhill outcropping. Both rovers have travelled over 4 miles each since landing on the Martian surface.