PALS: Adeene Denton (SwRI), The Summer Pluto Turned Pretty

A New Origin for the Pluto-Charon Binary (or, The Summer Pluto Turned Pretty)

Adeene Denton
NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow
Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, CO

Abstract: Pluto and its large satellite Charon form the largest binary system in the known population of trans-Neptunian objects in the outer Solar System. The system is thought to have formed through a giant impact, similar to how the Earth obtained its Moon. In this talk, I will introduce a new scenario for the collisional capture of Charon, called kiss-and-capture, which finds that the inclusion of material strength in giant impact simulations alters the conditions under which Charon becomes a stable satellite. Kiss-and-capture, which keeps both bodies largely intact during and after impact, has wide-ranging implications for the geologic evolution of Pluto, Charon, and other large-mass Kuiper Belt binaries.

Host:  Ben Sharkey