Mondo Knows Facts
Pluto and Charon orbit a common centre outside Pluto body
The dwarf planet and its large moon form a double planet system
Charon is so massive compared to Pluto, roughly 12 percent of Pluto's mass, that the gravitational centre of mass around which both bodies orbit sits in open space between them. Because their barycentre lies outside Pluto's surface, Pluto and Charon function as a binary dwarf planet system.
Where this comes from
Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
Go further
More facts like this
Pluto features a giant heart-shaped nitrogen glacierSputnik Planitia is a vast plain of frozen nitrogen ice on the dwarf planetEris discovery prompted the reclassification of PlutoThe distant Kuiper Belt dwarf planet is more massive than PlutoNew Horizons performed the first close-up flyby of Pluto in 2015High-resolution photos revealed ice mountains and nitrogen glaciersJupiter possesses the largest magnetic field of any solar system planetIf visible from Earth Jupiter magnetosphere would appear larger than the MoonMeteor showers occur when Earth passes through comet debris trailsTiny dust grains burn up in the upper atmosphere to create shooting starsWhite dwarfs are supported by quantum electron degeneracy pressureStellar remnant cores pack Earth-sized volumes with solar masses
Tags: pluto, charon, binary
Pluto and Charon orbit a common centre outside Pluto body: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- The dwarf planet and its large moon form a double planet system. The figure is taken from NASA Science, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a space fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Space shelf, one of 1,090 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.
