Scientists propose a new theory on how Pluto and Charon, a double dwarf planet system, formed. The 'kiss and capture' mechanism suggests they collided and temporarily stuck together before separating into their current orbit.
For billions of years, Pluto and its largest moon Charon have been facing each other in a mutual tidal lock. Since it’s about half the size of Pluto , the moon and its planet are sometimes referred to as a double dwarf planet system, with speculation that they may share a common origin story. Now, scientists may have figured out how this unusual duo came to be, rotating as a single object before being separated into a binary pair.
Pluto and Charon may have formed through a “kiss and capture” mechanism, with the two icy bodies colliding and becoming temporarily stuck together, spinning in a cosmic dance before separating into two objects that are forever bound in orbit, according to a new study. Most planetary collision scenarios are classified as ‘hit and run’ or ‘graze and merge.’ What we’ve discovered is something entirely different—a ‘kiss and capture’ scenario where the bodies collide, stick together briefly and then separate while remaining gravitationally bound,” said Adeene Denton, a NASA postdoctoral fellow, and lead author of the study. Charon is the largest of Pluto’s five moons, stretching at 754 miles (1,214 kilometers) across while the dwarf planet itself measures at 1,400 miles (2,253 km) wide. For years, it was believed that Charon formed the same way as Earth’s Moon, by way of a massive collision. With the Earth-Moon system, however, the colliding bodies behaved more like fluids due to their larger sizes and intense heat resulting from the collision. “Pluto and Charon are different—they’re smaller, colder and made primarily of rock and ice. When we accounted for the actual strength of these materials, we discovered something completely unexpected,” Denton said. The researchers behind the study carried out computer simulations of different collision scenarios and found that Pluto and Charon remained largely intact during their collision. They became fused together as a single, odd-shaped object, resembling a snowman, according to the model
PLANETARY COLLISION PLUTO CHARON DOUBLE DWARF PLANET KISS AND CAPTURE
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