The existing model neglects the importance of this structural integrity Pluto-Charon system. "Pluto and Charon are different – they're smaller, colder, and made primarily of rock and ice.

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.

Scientists propose Pluto and its moon Charon formed through a "kiss and capture" event 4.5 billion years ago, challenging previous theories about their unique size ratio and orbital relationship.

If Charon hit Pluto at a relatively sedate speed of about 2,000 miles per hour — 10 times as slow as the Earth’s moon-forming impact — the two would have remained in contact for about 10 ...

Pluto and its largest moon Charon could have come together via a 10-hour “kiss-and-capture” encounter after a grazing collision ...

Pluto may have got romantic to capture its largest moon, colliding and engaging in a passionate but icy 10 hour kiss with Charon billions of years ago. When you purchase through links on our site ...

Charon is the largest of Pluto’s five moons, stretching at 754 miles (1,214 kilometers) across while the dwarf planet itself measures at 1,400 miles (2,253 km) wide.

A full view of Pluto's crescent, captured by NASA's New Horizons team on July 14, 2015, as the spacecraft looked back at Pluto toward the sun. (NASA) (CN) — The question of how Pluto captured its moon ...

When Pluto and Charon collide, they stick together in the shape of a snowman. They rotate as one body until Pluto pushes Charon out into a stable orbit.

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.

Pluto and its moon Charon may have been briefly locked together in a cosmic “kiss”, before the dwarf planet released the smaller body and recaptured it in its orbit.