Unlike how scientists believe Earth's moon formed billions of years ago, Pluto and its biggest moon, Charon, didn't have a messy breakup. New computer simulations show the primitive dwarf planet and the object that struck it likely had an unforeseen kind of cosmic collision.

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,

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

Charon is large in size relative to Pluto, and is locked in a tight orbit with the dwarf planet. A new simulation suggests how it ended up there.

The “demoted” dwarf planet Pluto and its largest moon Charon make an unusual pair, and for decades, scientists have been discussing how the binary system—in which each mutually orbits the other—came to be.

Using simulations that took into account parameters like the size and composition of the bodies, along with the strength at which they collided, researchers reported that in the early stages of formation Charon and Pluto came together and orbited as one,

Unlike Earth, where the Moon orbits the planet, Pluto and Charon orbit each other, forming a binary system that is more similar to the Earth-moon system than any other moon in the solar system.