Dwarf planets, artwork. A dwarf planet is a planetary mass object orbiting the Sun, but not a true planet or satellite. They are massive enough for th
Dwarf planets, artwork. A dwarf planet is a planetary mass object orbiting the Sun, but not a true planet or satellite. They are massive enough for their self-gravities to crush them into spheres but they have not cleared the neighborhood of other material around their orbits. Ceres, for example, orbits in the asteroid belt, its 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 – along with their known natural satellites or moons. From left to right they are Pluto (with moons Charon, Hydra, Mix, Kerberos and Styx), Eris (with moon Dysnomia), Makemake, Ceres, and finally the oddly shaped Haumea (with moons Hiʻiaka and Namaka). The Earth is shown to add a sense of scale.
Size: 5000px × 2780px
Photo credit: © MARK GARLICK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: art, artwork, asteroid, astronomy, belt, ceres, comparison, dwarf, dysnomia, earth, eris, haumea, hiiaka, hydra, illustration, kerberos, kuiper, makamake, moon, namaka, nix, object, planet, planetoid, pluto, satellite, schematic, size, solar, space, styx, system, tna, trans-neptunian
