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,

"We were definitely surprised by the 'kiss' part of kiss-and-capture. There hasn't really been a kind of impact before where the two bodies only temporarily merge before re-separating!"

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'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.

The team led by Denton created simulations of the impact using high-performance computing clusters. This revealed that Pluto and Charon did not merge and stretch like silly putty, they just touched and got stuck together. They remained mostly intact during their collision and subsequent interaction.

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,

Until now, it was assumed that Pluto and Charon were formed after a violent collision. However, they may have found each other much more gently.

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

This "kiss and capture" mechanism offers a fresh perspective on planetary formation, particularly about Pluto and its largest moon Charon.