The process that left Pluto and its largest moon orbiting each other at a close distance may have been a lot gentler than earlier believed, researchers say. In a study published in the journal Nature Geoscience, researchers say Pluto and Charon may have briefly joined, then separated, in what they call a "kiss and capture" event billions of years ago. The researchers say Charon crashed into Pluto and they briefly stuck together, looking a bit like a snowman, before they broke apart, with the dwarf planet and its newly acquired moon both remaining largely intact, the Guardian reports. They believe the two bodies were stuck together for around 10 hours.
"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," says lead researcher Adeene Denton, a geologist and planetary scientist at the University of Arizona. Researchers earlier believed that Charon was formed in a process similar to that which formed our own moon, with a massive object smashing into Pluto, creating debris that eventually became a moon, New Scientist reports.
Denton and her colleagues, however, say the impact happened at a relatively slow speed, meaning computer models that treated objects involved in cosmic collisions as fluids don't apply. "What that means is that, because they're made of rock and ice, they respond the way those materials would under stress, and not like fluids," Denton says. (More Pluto stories.)
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