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.

"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!"

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.

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.

Using simulations that took into account parameters like the size and composition of the bodies, along with the strength at which they collided, researchers reported that in the early stages of formation Charon and Pluto came together and orbited as one,

The “demoted” dwarf planet Pluto and its largest moon Charon make an unusual pair, and for decades, scientists have been discussing how the binary system—in which each mutually orbits the other—came to be.

Unlike Earth, where the Moon orbits the planet, Pluto and Charon orbit each other, forming a binary system that is more similar to the Earth-moon system than any other moon in the solar system.