Scientists have discovered a new type of planetary collision called “kiss-and-capture,” where Pluto and proto-Charon briefly connected and spun together before separating into their current orbital ...

Charon is large in size relative to Pluto, and is locked in a tight orbit with the dwarf planet. A new simulation suggests how it ended up there. By Jonathan O’Callaghan Some 4.5 billion years ...

Pluto may have got romantic to capture its largest moon, colliding and engaging in a passionate but icy 10 hour kiss with ...

Recent simulations link the creation of Pluto and its moon Charon to a colossal impact, akin to the Earth-Moon origin, ...

The impact sent molten debris from Earth flying into space, which eventually came together in orbit around our world and cooled to form the moon. But these theories didn’t account for the fact that ...

Pluto and its moon Charon may have been briefly locked together in a cosmic “kiss”, before the dwarf planet released the smaller body and recaptured it in its orbit. Charon is the largest of ...

Researchers accounted for the previously overlooked structures of the dwarf planet and moon in computer simulations of a ...

And the new research may offer evidence for a subsurface ocean beneath Pluto’s icy crust. Charon and Earth’s moon are both a large fraction of the size of the main body they orbit, which is ...

Using computer models, researchers studying Pluto and its moon, Charon, have discovered an unforeseen kind of cosmic collision and the potential for oceans in the outer solar system.

New study reveals Pluto and Charon’s origin: a unique "kiss and capture" collision redefines how binary systems form.