The number of planets that orbit the sun depends on what you mean by “planet,” and that’s not so easy to define ...

Researchers accounted for the previously overlooked structures of the dwarf planet and moon in computer simulations of a ...

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 ...

"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!" ...

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.

It must have enough mass to draw itself into a round shape ... it's a matter of sentiment — many people grew up thinking of Pluto as a planet, and they are still emotionally invested in it.

By contrast, in the ‘strengthless’ capture mechanisms proposed previously, proto-Charon loses much of its mass to Pluto.

While Charon is currently listed as a satellite or moon by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), consideration is being given to it perhaps being classified as a dwarf planet in its own right, ...

Binary systems form when two celestial bodies orbit around a common center of mass, like figure ... smaller moons orbiting planets throughout our solar system. (Pluto has four smaller moons ...

Pluto and its biggest moon, Charon, didn't have a messy breakup. New computer simulations show the primitive dwarf planet and the object that struck it likely had an unforeseen kind of cosmic ...

Discovered in 1930, Pluto was identified as the ninth planet until reclassified as a ... it and Pluto actually orbit a common center of mass (or “barycenter”) that is outside the surface ...

Pluto in Aquarius 2025: read on to learn more about what the planet of death in the sign of the water bearer has in store for the collective this year. artefacti - stock.adobe.com Let’s talk ...