How are you, a “hit and run” type, or “hit and merge”? Or even “kiss and capture?”. No, I didn’t open a heartfelt post, I’m actually talking about astronomy, and a new hypothesis on the formation of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon. But let’s start with our own, the Moon’s: one of the most accredited hypotheses is that four and a half billion years ago the Earth, still incandescent, was hit by another planet, and that the two bodies merged, letting molten rock escape which, cooling in orbit around the Earth, gave rise to our satellite.
In short, it would be a “hit and fuse” with a piece that splashed out but not too far away. Although it could also be a “hit and run”, the Earth hit like a billiard ball with the other ball going away and a piece of Earth releasing molten rock which goes on to form the Moon; in any case we have evidence that the Moon was part of the Earth before this catastrophic event (catastrophic for anyone, because there was nothing yet, on the contrary: without this fortuitous collision, i.e. without the Moon, the formation of life on Earth would have been very difficult).
Instead, for Pluto and Charon, Adeene Denton, researcher at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory of the University of Arizona, what he called a “kiss and capture” would have happened. No fusion, no hit and run, almost a global love story. In practice, Pluto and Charon collided, but due to their structure they remained almost intact, starting to orbit one around the other. Due to the strong impact and friction of the two bodies (if it still seems like a loving or sexual thing to you, it isn’t), Pluto would also have overheated, and this would explain the reason for the presence of underground oceans derived from the solar system (more radioactive) .
In short, this hypothesis should have left geological traces even on the surface of the two
planetary objects when they were much closer to each other due to tidal forces that would shape their shape. Still to be verified, but plausible, after all a “kiss and capture” always leaves an indelible mark.