Scientists have discovered a new type of planetary collision called “kiss-and-capture,” where Pluto and proto-Charon briefly ...

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 ...

"We were definitely surprised by the 'kiss' part of kiss-and-capture. There hasn't really been a kind of impact before where the two bodies only temporarily merge before re-separating!" ...

Pluto’s solid ice is shown in yellow, and Charon’s ice is green. The encounter shown here lasts about 60 hours. The real collision would have been a lot less splashy, Denton says. She and her ...

With Charon being half Pluto’s size, experts have struggled to explain how it ended up in the dwarf planet’s domain. Now, a team of researchers has suggested that Pluto may have secured Charon ...

Pluto landed its largest moon, Charon, with a 'kiss'—overturning decades of scientific assumptions about how planetary bodies form and evolve. This is the conclusion of a new study, conducted at ...

As the gatekeepers to the Kuiper Belt, Charon and Pluto are a unique double dwarf planet system. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it ...

The report, published in “Nature Geoscience,” describes how the minuscule dwarf planet could lure in Charon, a space rock nearly half its size, to orbit. The authors suggest that Pluto and ...

For decades, astronomers have tried to determine how Pluto acquired its unusually large moon Charon, which is about half the size of the dwarf planet. Now, new research suggests that Pluto and ...

A new study suggests that the origin of Pluto's largest moon was quite different than our own. Here's what you need to know.

Most moons orbit their planets, but Pluto and Charon are different—they revolve around a point in space between them! 🔄 Why does this happen, and what did NASA’s New Horizons mission reveal about ...

New research suggests that billions of years ago, Pluto may have captured its largest moon, Charon, with a very brief icy "kiss." The theory could explain how the dwarf planet (yeah, we wish Pluto ...