Pluto likely acquired large moon Charon in a “kiss and capture” collision billions of years ago. It may have created a subsurface ocean on the icy dwarf planet.
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"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!" ...
A new theory about Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, could alter how planetary systems are taught in U.S. schools. Scientists suggest that 4.5 billion years ago, Pluto and Charon experienced a "kiss and ...
The theory could explain how the dwarf planet (yeah, we wish Pluto was still a planet, too) could snare a moon that is around half its size. The team behind this research thinks that two frigid ...
Pluto can be thought of as being part of a binary system with its biggest satellite, Charon (pictured). Scientists have long thought that this system formed as the result of a collision between ...
At about 750 miles wide, it's half the size of Pluto — extremely large for a moon. In previous models, Charon formed in a similar fashion to Earth's moon: The theory goes that a Mars-sized ...