Using advanced models, SwRI led new research that indicates that the formation of Pluto and Charon may parallel that of the Earth-Moon system. In the resulting “kiss-and-capture” regime, Pluto and ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Researchers propose an ammonia-water slurry as the basis for Pluto's newly discovered geologic activity and possible volcanism, and offer a new method to predict planetary vigor ...

Cross-sections of plausible interior structure models for Charon (a) and Pluto (b). In (a) and (b), the thicknesses of the silicate parts (and therefore also of the ice layers) range from 395–430 km ...

Pluto's largest moon, Charon, likely formed through a capture event in the early, crowded Kuiper Belt. Three-body encounters and tidal forces allowed Charon to lose energy and become permanently bound ...

An Icarus special issue on Pluto system science will be published in 2014. The pace of discovery about the Pluto system has accelerated continually since its discovery in 1930, and we are now on the ...

Almost 30 years after the discovery of Pluto’s large moon, Charon, a University of Hawaii astronomer has used a ground-based telescope to take an image of the Pluto system that exceeds the sharpness ...

Pluto’s back, baby! Seventeen years after it was demoted from planet to dwarf planet, it is time for Pluto to retake its former title…at least according to our hosts, Chelsea Whyte and Leah Crane. In ...

Existence of subsurface oceans on the satellites of the giant planets and Trans-Neptunian objects has been predicted for some time. Oceans on icy worlds exert a considerable influence on the dynamics ...