Baltimore ? Pluto has three moons, not one, new images from the Hubble Space Telescope suggest.

Pluto, discovered as the ninth planet in 1930, was thought to be alone until its moon Charon was spotted in 1978. The new moons, more than twice as far away as Charon and many times fainter, were spotted by Hubble in May.

While the observations have to be confirmed, members of the team that discovered the satellites said Monday they felt confident about their data.

“Pluto and Charon are not alone, they have two neighbors,” said Hal Weaver of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

Follow-up observations by the Hubble are planned in February. If they are confirmed, the International Astronomical Union will consider names for the objects.

Earlier this month another group of astronomers, who claim to have discovered the 10th planet in the solar system, also said that body had a moon. (Whether the group actually discovered a new planet has not been confirmed.)

Both Pluto and the new, so-called planet are found in the Kuiper Belt, a disc of icy bodies beyond Neptune.