Using computer models, researchers studying Pluto and its moon, Charon, have discovered an unforeseen kind of cosmic collision and the potential for oceans in the outer solar system.

Pluto and Charon may have formed through a “kiss and capture” mechanism, with the two icy bodies colliding and becoming temporarily stuck together, spinning in a cosmic dance before separating into two objects that are forever bound in orbit,

Pluto likely acquired large moon Charon in a “kiss and capture” collision billions of years ago. It may have created a subsurface ocean on the icy dwarf planet.

The “demoted” dwarf planet Pluto and its largest moon Charon make an unusual pair, and for decades, scientists have been discussing how the binary system—in which each mutually orbits the other—came to be.