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A dwarf planet is a small planetary-mass object that is in direct orbit around the Sun, massive enough to be gravitationally rounded, but insufficient to achieve orbital dominance like the eight classical planets of the Solar System.
These lists contain the Sun, the planets, dwarf planets, many of the larger small Solar System bodies (which includes the asteroids), all named natural satellites, and a number of smaller objects of historical or scientific interest, such as comets and near-Earth objects.
The radii of these objects range over three orders of magnitude, from planetary-mass objects like dwarf planets and some moons to the planets and the Sun. This list does not include small Solar System bodies , but it does include a sample of possible planetary-mass objects whose shapes have yet to be determined.
The number of dwarf planets in the Solar System is unknown. Estimates have run as high as 200 in the Kuiper belt [1] and over 10,000 in the region beyond. [2] However, consideration of the surprisingly low densities of many large trans-Neptunian objects, as well as spectroscopic analysis of their surfaces, suggests that the number of dwarf planets may be much lower, perhaps only nine among ...
The largest known trans-Neptunian objects are Pluto and Eris, followed by Haumea, Makemake, Gonggong, Quaoar, Sedna, and Orcus, all of them being officially recognized as dwarf planets by the IAU except for Gonggong, Sedna, and Orcus. There are also many possible dwarf planets, such as Salacia, (307261) 2002 MS 4, Varda, Ixion, and Varuna.
Eris (minor-planet designation: 136199 Eris) is the most massive and second-largest known dwarf planet in the Solar System. [22] It is a trans-Neptunian object (TNO) in the scattered disk and has a high-eccentricity orbit. Eris was discovered in January 2005 by a Palomar Observatory–based team led by Mike Brown and verified later that year.
Gas dwarf: A low-mass planet composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. Gas giant: A massive planet composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. Helium planet: A theoretical planet that may form via mass loss from a low-mass white dwarf. Helium planets are predicted to have roughly the same diameter as hydrogen–helium planets of the same mass ...
Below is a list of planets and dwarf planets ranked by Margot's planetary discriminant Π, in decreasing order. [2] For all eight planets defined by the IAU, Π is orders of magnitude greater than 1, whereas for all dwarf planets, Π is orders of magnitude less than 1.