• DOI:10.1126/SCIENCE.1106818
Corpus ID: 19558835

A Giant Impact Origin of Pluto-Charon

@article{Canup2005AGI,
  title={A Giant Impact Origin of Pluto-Charon},
  author={R. Canup},
  journal={Science},
  year={2005},
  volume={307},
  pages={546 - 550}
}

R. Canup

Published 2005

Geology, Medicine

Science

Pluto and its moon, Charon, are the most prominent members of the Kuiper belt, and their existence holds clues to outer solar system formation processes. Here, hydrodynamic simulations are used to demonstrate that the formation of Pluto-Charon by means of a large collision is quite plausible. I show that such an impact probably produced an intact Charon, although it is possible that a disk of material orbited Pluto from which Charon later accumulated. These findings suggest that collisions… CONTINUE READING

View on AAAS

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Save to Library

Create Alert

Cite

Launch Research Feed