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 the object that struck it likely had an unforeseen kind of cosmic collision.

Pluto and Charon may have formed through a “kiss and capture” mechanism, with the two icy bodies colliding and becoming temporarily stuck together, spinning in a cosmic dance before separating into two objects that are forever bound in orbit,

Pluto and Charon's origin story has been rewritten by a recent study, revealing they formed from a unique "kiss and capture" collision that defies traditional scientific theories. This discovery, emphasizing the structural integrity of icy worlds,

Pluto's big moon Charon may have a different origin story than scientists suspected. New research suggests the two bodies engaged in a celestial kiss and tango.

New models reveal Pluto and Charon may have spent some of their early history locked together in an embrace after a grazing collision.

Simulations suggest Pluto and its largest moon may have gently stuck together for a few hours before Charon settled into a stable orbit around the dwarf planet

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.

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.

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 formation Charon and Pluto came together and orbited as one,

The reason that Pluto and Charon are so interesting is because Charon is 50% the size of Pluto,” said Adeene Denton, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona who led the paper. “The only comparable system is Earth and its moon.