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

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 ...

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.

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 ...

This composite image of Pluto, right, and Charon, its largest moon, showcases photos captured by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft in July 2015. Credit: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI Unlike how scientists ...

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 ...

“Something big hits Pluto, and you get Charon, but like with the Earth-moon system, we don’t fully know how that works and the conditions under which that occurs,” Denton said. “It’s a ...

While Charon is currently listed as a satellite or moon by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), consideration is being given to it perhaps being classified as a dwarf planet in its own right, ...

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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 ...