Pluto’s ‘Kiss’ Helped Catch the Largest Bear; find out how

When observing Earth’s night sky, we can marvel at the sight of the full, shining Moon; Unlike other planets, our earth has only one natural satellite. If we were already on Pluto, on its surface, we would be surprised by the five moons orbiting the dwarf planet. To contain, One of them may have been caught in a cosmic ‘kiss’-like event.

Currently, scientists do not know the exact details that made the formation of our Moon possible, but there are some theories that may explain why this natural satellite is part of our planet’s orbital dance.

The most accepted hypothesis suggests that Theia, a Mars-sized celestial body, collided with Earth at the beginning of planet formation; Evidence collected in recent years supports this theory.

As a result, the expelled pieces formed a disk of debris that, when collected together, formed the Moon. It then got ‘stuck’ in our orbit and became an important part of the structures that shape how the Earth works.

In the case of Pluto, which orbits with its moons Charon, Nix, Hydra, Cerberus, and Styx, scientists believed that some of these moons may have formed similarly to Earth. For example, Many experts have suggested that Charon, the largest and closest moon to the dwarf planet, arose from a process similar to the process that formed our Moon.

A team of scientists from the University of Arizona in the United States states in a new study published in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience: Charon was not formed by a massive collision like the one that occurred between Earth and Theia billions of years ago.

In fact, its origin was the result of a collision, but it may have occurred under very different circumstances than science believes.

“Pluto and Charon are the largest binary system in the known population of trans-Neptunian objects in the outer Solar System. “The shared outer orbital axis points to a linked evolutionary history and collision origin… Here, we numerically model the collisional capture of Charon by Pluto using simulations involving the strength of the material,” the study explains in the introduction.

Pluto and Moon Charon’s ‘kiss’

Billions of years ago, according to new research Pluto may have captured Charon through an icy ‘kiss’. So what does this ‘kiss and grab’ mean? Good morning my baby, it’s just A metaphor used to describe the collision process that resulted in the capture of Charon, Pluto’s largest moon and one of its main orbiting companions.

According to planetary scientist Adeene Denton of the University of Arizona, most planetary collisions occur in two ways: scattering of materials from the explosion or merging of related objects.

But Charon was created in a completely different way. During the so-called cosmic ‘kiss’, objects collided and stayed together for a short time until they separated.. Charon then became trapped in Pluto’s orbit.

They refer to an icy ‘kiss’ because Pluto and Charon, like other objects in the Kuiper Belt, are extremely cold celestial bodies. Because they are very far from the Sun. Temperatures in both are extremely low, and this collision, called the kiss, occurs precisely in this icy environment.

Moreover, scientists believe that this collision, which brought them together and briefly separated them, played an important role in Pluto’s current shape.

“We are particularly interested in understanding how this early configuration affected Pluto’s geological evolution. The heat from the impact and subsequent tidal forces may have played a crucial role in creating the features we see on Pluto’s surface today,” Denton said.

Formation of Pluto and Charon

Scientists’ data show that, unlike what happened between the Earth and the Moon, Charon and Pluto remained together for a certain period of time, relatively intact and with their original compositions. Like this, When they were separated, they retained some common features. These results were obtained through computer simulations of the event.

During the collision of our planet and its natural satellite, the two bodies behaved as liquids due to the high temperatures and malleable conditions of their composition. In the case of Pluto and Charon, scientists still do not fully understand how this interaction occurs.

Pluto’s diameter is 2,376 kilometers and Charon’s diameter is 1,214 kilometers, with a distance of 19,500 kilometers between the two. These factors make it even more difficult to fully understand the cosmic ‘kiss’.

Researchers believe that because Pluto’s orbital axis is almost perfectly aligned with that of its largest moon, the collision may have caused it to spin in the same direction. However, they still cannot explain the reason for Charon’s size and orbit..

“In our simulations, friction dissipates impact momentum, causing Charon and Pluto to temporarily link up rather than merging for collisions in-line with the target’s rotation. In this “kiss-and-grab” regime, the bodies are forcibly prevented from coming together,” the study notes.

Simulations suggest that Charon may have moved away from Pluto under the influence of tidal forces, resulting in a nearly circular orbit. Since the chemical properties of both objects remained virtually unchanged after the collision, scientists consider this to be possible evidence that Charon is the same age as Pluto.

The presence of many icy objects like Pluto in the Solar System arouses great interest among scientists who study these icy worlds. Are you curious? Discover more about the Kuiper Belt, the region that hosts many of these bodies. Until later!