Dwarf planets compared to Earth's Moon, artwork. A dwarf planet is a planetary-mass object orbiting the Sun, but not a true planet or a satellite. The

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Dwarf planets compared to Earth's Moon, artwork. A dwarf planet is a planetary-mass object orbiting the Sun, but not a true planet or a satellite. They are massive enough for their self-gravities to crush them into a sphere but they have not cleared the neighborhood of other material around their orbits. Ceres, for example, orbits in the asteroid belt, I orbit shared with those of the other asteroids. All the other dwarf planets so far known are found beyond Neptune, in a region of the Solar system full of debris called the Kuiper belt. This illustration shows the five currently confirmed dwarf planets in the Solar System – as of 2018 - compared to the Earth's Moon (far left). From left clockwise they are Pluto, Haumea, Eris, Makemake, Ceres and Haumea. Haumea has an ellipsoidal shape rather than a sphere, owing to its rapid spin.

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Size: 5606px × 3117px
Photo credit: © MARK GARLICK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: art, artwork, asteroid, astronomical, astronomy, belt, ceres, comparison, dwarf, dysnomia, eris, haumea, hiiaka, hydra, illustration, kerberos, kuiper, makamake, moon, namaka, nix, planet, pluto, satellite, size, solar, space, styx, system, tna