Unlike how scientists believe Earth's moon formed billions of years ago, Pluto and its biggest moon, Charon, didn't have a messy breakup. New computer simulations show the primitive dwarf planet and ...

Charon is large in size relative to Pluto ... formed Earth’s moon? The sizes of Pluto and Charon meant that it was difficult to work out how they “didn’t just merge like two blobs of ...

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 ...

Pluto and its largest moon, Charon. A new study has proposed that Pluto captured Charon via a 'kiss'—rather than a catastrophic collision like the one that formed Earth's moon. Pluto and its ...

This composite image of Pluto ... moon. In previous models, Charon formed in a similar fashion to Earth's moon: The theory goes that a Mars-sized planet whacked a primitive version of Earth like ...

The larger moons of Pluto and Earth likely formed through a collisional process with Charon and our moon, respectively, ...

But, just like with Earth’s moon, the details are fuzzy. “It goes, something hit Pluto, question mark question mark question mark, Charon is now there,” Denton says. Computer simulations of ...

For decades, astronomers have tried to determine how Pluto acquired its unusually ... Scientists have long theorized that Charon formed much like Earth’s moon, which was created after a Mars ...

"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 pretty big ...