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.

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — For decades, astronomers have tried to determine how Pluto acquired its unusually large moon Charon, which is about half the size of the dwarf planet.

For decades, astronomers have tried to determine how Pluto acquired its unusually large moon Charon, which is about half the size of the dwarf planet. Now, new research suggests that Pluto and ...

Pluto and its moon Charon possibly "kissed" billions of years ago, a new report shows.© Elenarts - stock.adobe.com Pluto and Charon's reported connected is unprecedented.© Pavel - stock.adobe.com ...

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.

Charon is 728 miles across - nearly half Pluto's diameter. Compared to the dwarf planet it's massive enough that the two bodies orbit about a barycenter well outside of Pluto.

Pluto and Charon are somewhat of a celestial odd couple — Charon’s radius is just about half the size of Pluto, making it abnormally large for a moon — but researchers uncovered new observations about ...

Because Charon is just over half the size of Pluto, the two bodies then began orbiting each other in a cosmic dance in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune’s orbit.

It is about half the size of Pluto and about eight times less massive. The new observations put Charon’s diameter at between 750 and 753 miles (1,207 and 1,212 kilometers).

When the New Horizons mission conducted the closest flyby of Pluto and its moon, Charon, in 2015, images provided a zoomed-in view of their pockmarked surfaces. The scars are ancient impact ...

For decades, astronomers have tried to determine how Pluto acquired its unusually large moon Charon, which is about half the size of the dwarf planet.

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.