Earth has a newly-discovered neighbor in the solar system. But the heavenly body – possibly a dwarf planet à la Pluto – isn't a frequent visitor. Located beyond Neptune, its extreme orbit ...

Since Pluto is located so far from the sun, it takes around 248 Earth years for Pluto to orbit the sun. Pluto's orbit around the sun is not only a very long journey, it's also elliptical, resembling a ...

Billions of years ago, in the frozen edges of the solar system, a violent impact shaped one of space’s oddest pairs. Instead of a typical planet-moon setup, Pluto and Charon became a binary system.

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 Charon ...

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 ...

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 the largest of Pluto’s ...

Some 4.5 billion years ago, the dwarf planet Pluto was suddenly joined by a companion. For a brief period – perhaps only hours – they danced as if arm in arm before gently separating, a grand do-si-do ...

Brad E Tucker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond ...

This close up look at Pluto and Charon, taken as part of the mission's latest optical navigation ("OpNav") campaign from Jan. 25-31, 2015, comes from the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on ...