The proposed kiss and capture of Charon by Pluto, shown hours after the collision, at the time of separation.Robert Melikyan and Adeene Denton
Posted on 01/12/2025 11:35:53 AM PST by SunkenCiv
The "demoted" dwarf planet Pluto and its largest moon Charon make an unusual pair, and for decades, scientists have been discussing how the binary system—in which each mutually orbits the other—came to be. With Charon being half Pluto's size, experts have struggled to explain how it ended up in the dwarf planet's domain.
Now, a team of researchers has suggested that Pluto may have secured Charon through a newly described "kiss and capture" mechanism... Their work was published on Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience.
The new theory suggests that billions of years ago, Pluto and Charon collided in the far reaches of the outer solar system. Rather than obliterating each other, the two bodies joined together in a spinning snowman shape (the kiss) for 10 to 15 hours before separating—but ultimately, they remained trapped in each other's orbits (the capture). Despite the collision, the dwarf planet and moon would have remained mostly intact...
Previously, scientists suggested Charon had formed through another scenario: A celestial body catastrophically smashed into Pluto, generating a massive amount heat from the impact that would have made the bodies behave in a fluid-like manner, like silly putty or blobs in a lava lamp. Scientists widely agree that Earth's moon formed in a similar way...
"Because Pluto is rotating rapidly prior to the collision, and because Charon lies mostly outside of their corotation zone, it is able to 'push' Charon off, and Charon starts to slowly migrate out," Denton tells the Guardian's Nicola Davis. She adds that the impact could have marked the start of a new geological era for Pluto, whose surface we observed in 2015 with the New Horizons space probe.
(Excerpt) Read more at smithsonianmag.com ...
The proposed kiss and capture of Charon by Pluto, shown hours after the collision, at the time of separation.Robert Melikyan and Adeene Denton
Subtitled: Researchers accounted for the previously overlooked structures of the dwarf planet and moon in computer simulations of a celestial collision
(”kiss and capture”)
Oh yeah. I remember dating her in the 1980s. Knocked me out of my orbit too.
Interesting mention of the tidal transfer of momentum process (although I don't think the writer calls it by name).
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Now that would have been a big bang.
If this isn't a Cole Porter song, it should be.
:^) I was amused that the commuter drop-off for the DC subway is called “kiss and ride”. I remember dating her too... :^)
Good idea, anything goes.
So ... Pluto is not a planet. But it does have 5 moons. Whatever.
Bogus magazine which often makes things up and misleads while omitting salient facts.
Look up Theia, the small planet that supposedly smacked into earth soon after the earth formed. Probably Mars-sized. There are some online videos of simulations of this event.
I think the prevailing theory is they started out as pen pals at first and then it got serious later.
I don't know whythe Romance Book Cover Generator put in the title twice.
There is a theory that Pluto is an escaped moon of Neptune (their orbits cross). Maybe it was Charon who kissed and captured?
They just make shite up.
All orbits are mutual. The reason for many large shifts in earth's climate is the sun orbiting the planets as they orbit the sun.
Neptune's largest moon, Triton, orbits in the opposite direction as the other moons. Astronomers conjecture that it was captured by Neptune.
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