Remember Pluto, the dwarf planet who lost its planetary status back in 2006?

Well if there’s one other thing you should know about the most famous dwarf planet in our solar system, it’s that it has not one but five moons.

And one of those moons, known as Charon, is half the size of Pluto itself.

But that’s not the only thing that’s unusual about the relationship between Pluto and its largest moon.

In fact, according to new research from the University of Arizona, the two have a really close relationship: so close, in fact, that each is key to the other’s existence.

Though there are now over 12,000 miles between Pluto and Charon, this was not always the case.

In fact, according to Adeene Denton’s research – which was recently published in the academic journal Nature Geoscience – Pluto and Charon were once touching, thanks to something she calls a “kiss and capture” mechanism. This planetary embrace would change both of their trajectories forever, according to a statement from the University of Arizona:

“Billions of years ago, in the frigid outer reaches of our solar system, two icy worlds collided. Rather than destroying each other in a cosmic catastrophe, they spun together like a celestial snowman, finally separating while remaining forever linked in orbit. This is how Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, originated.”

Not only does Denton’s study explain the unique way in which Pluto, Charon, and their special relationship formed, it could also be the key to understanding more about how other planets formed and evolved too.

That’s because until now, we only really understood how planets and moons like our own formed. But, according to Denton, these collision theories would be impossible in other parts of our solar system, where rocky, icy planets were subjected to temperatures of almost -250 degrees Celsius.

The impacts of collisions in these conditions would be very different to in our own, as Denton explained:

“Pluto and Charon are different – they’re smaller, colder and made primarily of rock and ice. When we accounted for the actual strength of these materials, we discovered something completely unexpected.

Most planetary collision scenarios are classified as ‘hit and run’ or ‘graze and merge.’ What we’ve discovered is something entirely different – a ‘kiss and capture’ scenario where the bodies collide, stick together briefly and then separate while remaining gravitationally bound.”

Rather than crashing into one another and stretching, like planets in our warmer region of the solar system, the researchers found that the bodies that would one day become Pluto and Charon crashed and then got temporarily stuck together.

The end result?

The two objects that were once stuck together now orbit one another, in what is known as a ‘binary system’.

And, even more fascinatingly, through this ‘kiss’, there was little significant damage to either of the bodies.

Instead, they remained in their planetary embrace for some time, before gradually moving apart, but never truly leaving one another.

Who knew that space could be so romantic?

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