Pluto's largest moon, Charon. (Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute) Labroots recently explored Saturn’s sponge-like moon, Hyperion, with its ...

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 ...

The icy volcanism of Charon may be caused by its internal ocean freezing, expanding, and cracking the outer shell of the moon if it was thinner than expected. When you purchase through links on ...

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.

NASA’s New Horizons space probe flew by Pluto and Charon back in 2015. But there were still many questions unanswered about the former planet and its moon.

Charon, its biggest of five moons, was discovered in 1978 by the U.S. Naval Observatory. At about 750 miles wide, it's half the size of Pluto — extremely large for a moon.

Left: showing elongated image of Pluto, with Charon to the upper right. Right: showing "undistorted" image of Pluto with Charon along line of sight with the planet. Official USNO Photograph. [Image 2: ...

moons around some of them.” Co-author Merline adds, “If Pluto’s small moons generate debris rings from impacts on their surfaces, as we predict, it would open up a whole new ...

Unlike most moons, Charon is almost half the size of Pluto, so they actually orbit around a point in space between them, almost like they're twin planets.

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 ...

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.

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.