The dwarf planet, Pluto, and its counterpart Eris are the first two members of a new class of objects called plutoids. Both lie beyond Neptune and are large enough that gravity pulls them into spherical forms. Any newfound object with similar traits will also fall into this IAU-established, dwarf-planet category.
Credit: IAU, NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, H. Weaver (JHU/APL), A. Stern (SwRI), the HST Pluto Companion Search Team and M. Brown.
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