Both systems include a moon that is a large fraction of the size of the main body, unlike other moons in the solar system. The scenario also could support Pluto's active geology and possible ...

15, 2025 — New observational data and simulation models have confirmed a new type of planet unlike anything found in the Solar ... Pluto-Charon Formation Scenario Mimics Earth-Moon System ...

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.

When Denton and her colleagues simulated a collision including the structural properties of Pluto and Charon ... early on in the history of the solar system, which is estimated to be 4.6 billion ...

Additionally, the collision process, including ... a mechanism for Pluto to develop a subsurface ocean without requiring formation in the more radioactive very early solar system—a timing ...

That made all the difference, Denton said. The simulation showed that Pluto and its impactor didn't merge, lose a lot of material to the solar system, or become fluid blobs. Researchers now wonder ...

"It's half Pluto's size and 12% of its mass, which makes it much more similar to the Earth's moon than any other moon in the solar system." ...

Pluto and Charon are in a region of the outer solar system beyond Neptune called the Kuiper belt, which makes them both very rocky and icy. By including these properties in their model ...

Both systems include a moon that is a large fraction of the size of the main body, unlike other moons in the solar system. The scenario also could support Pluto’s active geology and possible ...