Starts With A Bang #114 - Pluto and Charon

Starts With A Bang podcast

Out there in the Universe, there are tremendous, uncountable numbers of planetary systems just waiting to be discovered. But stellar systems won't just consist of planets orbiting a parent star; there will be moons, asteroids, Kuiper belt-like objects, and many of them will be bound together into their own rich sets of systems, with both irregular and round bodies comprising these planetary systems.

Here in our own Solar System, we have at least three notable large, terrestrial-sized bodies with impressive lunar systems of their own: the Earth-Moon system, the Mars-Phobos-Deimos system, and the Plutonian planetary system. Pluto, interestingly, is orbited by Charon, which is very large and massive compared to Pluto, an unusual and possibly unique, or most extreme, configuration of all known such bodies. But how did it get to be that way? That's the topic of this podcast, and the research focus of this month's guest: Dr. Adeene Denton.

It's kind of amazing what variety can emerge in terms of surviving systems from ancient planetary collisions, but by running simulations and understanding the geology of these worlds, we can learn more about what's possible, likely, and unlikely in our Universe. Dive into this fascinating conversation and learn some cutting-edge science along the way!

(This composite image of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, was based on photographs taken by the New Horizons mission as it flew by the Plutonian planetary system back in 2015. Charon's appearance is vastly different from Pluto's, but both bodies are shown with the correct relative size and albedo. Credit: NASA, APL, SwRI)