News Planetary Science

Pluto may have captured its moon Charon with a kiss

The pair of Kuiper belt objects linked up in a “kiss-and-capture” collision

The dwarf planet Pluto, whose surface is dominated by a light heart-shaped feature, is in the foreground. Its moon Charon sits slightly behind and to the left.

The New Horizons spacecraft flyby in 2015 captured these images of Pluto (lower right) and its large moon Charon (upper left). While this is a composite, and not to scale, new simulations reveal the pair’s close relationship.

SwRI/JHUAPL/NASA

By Lisa Grossman

Read another version of this article at Science News Explores

Pluto and Charon’s meet-cute may have started with a kiss.