Here’s how it works. Charon is the largest moon of the dwarf planet Pluto, but calling it a moon is really a misnomer; Pluto and Charon actually form a binary system. Whereas a moon usually ...

In August 2006, the International Astronomical Union made the controversial, but correct, decision to demote Pluto from its ...

According to a recent YouGov poll, 35% of Americans think Pluto is not a planet. But they are all wrong—kind of. To get to ...

In a nutshell 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 ...

Pluto may have got romantic to capture its largest moon, colliding and engaging in a passionate but icy 10 hour kiss with Charon billions of years ago. When you purchase through links on our site ...

The number of planets that orbit the sun depends on what you mean by “planet,” and that’s not so easy to define ...

Dwarf planet Pluto and our Earth are the only two worlds in our solar system with very large moons. These may have come about by a "kiss and capture" process, which preserves a moon's large size.

Pluto's demotion was partially caused by us getting better at spotting planets (or "dwarf planets," if you prefer ... Pluto's largest moon, Charon, is almost half the size of Pluto.

Pluto seemed hopelessly cold and distant ... The computer modeling doesn’t just explain the formation of the dwarf planet and its largest moon, either. “The compelling thing about this study ...

6, 2006, Pluto and the others were formally recategorized not as planets but as “dwarf planets” — objects ... rocky interior. A tiny moon, named Dysnomia after the mythological Eris ...

On this date, Jan. 19, 2006, the first probe ever destined to visit Pluto, its moons and other Kuiper ... on its nine-year journey to the icy dwarf planet. This mission marked the first time ...