“The only comparable system is Earth and its moon.” Charon is about ... It might also have resulted in the formation of Pluto’s four other known moons — Nix, Styx, Kerberos and Hydra ...

The other four moons—Nix, Hydra, Kerberos and Styx—are much smaller than Charon. One idea is that Pluto got its moon system when a massive object smashed into the dwarf planet. The resulting ...

Experts postulated a new theory about the largest moon of the dwarf planet Pluto. The planet had five moons among which Charon was the largest and had a diameter of about 754 miles, just over half ...

Pluto can be thought of as being part of a binary system with its biggest satellite, Charon (pictured). Scientists have long thought that this system formed as the result of a collision between ...

Charon, Pluto's largest moon, is almost half the size of the dwarf ... and potentially led to the formation of Pluto's smaller moons — Nix, Styx, Kerberos, and Hydra. Bill McKinnon, a planetary ...

"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!" New ...

Pluto landed its largest moon, Charon, with a 'kiss'—overturning decades of scientific assumptions about how planetary bodies form and evolve. This is the conclusion of a new study, conducted at ...

Whereas a moon usually orbits a planet, both Pluto and Charon orbit a point in space between them — their common center of mass. The other four moons in the system — Styx, Nix, Kerberos and ...

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 ...

Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. For decades ...

The love story between Pluto and Charon may have started with a kiss. A new study suggests the dwarf planet and its scarcely smaller moon likely came together in a collision that saw them ...

Pluto and Charon’s meet-cute may have started with a kiss. New computer simulations of the dwarf planet and its largest moon suggest that the pair got together in a “kiss-and-capture ...