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[-] Zellith@kbin.social 13 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Pluto and Charon are double planets. Change my mind.

[-] Animated_beans@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago

Pluto is smaller than Earth's moon. Should our moon be a planet too?

[-] Pegajace@lemmy.world 29 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

No, because absolute size is not what makes a moon a moon. Our Moon is a moon because it directly orbits a planet, not a star. Charon is massive enough relative to Pluto that the former does not directly orbit the latter, but instead they both orbit a common barycenter located between them, making them a binary planetary system.

[-] DroneRights@lemm.ee 6 points 7 months ago

A binary dwarf planetary system

[-] Frozengyro@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

I mean the earth and moon do the same thing, just on a much smaller scale.

[-] Pegajace@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

Not quite. All two-body systems orbit a common barycenter, but the mass ratio of the Earth-Moon system is so lopsided that the barycenter is inside the Earth, not between them like with Pluto and Charon.

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this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2023
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