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The others, having estimated diameter below 700 km, are unlikely to be dwarf planets on the basis of current evaluation, but may be transitional (partially compressed) bodies. Light grey indicates objects whose densities may or may not be higher than 1.5 g/cm 3.
Relative masses of the Solar planets. Jupiter at 71% of the total and Saturn at 21% dominate the system. Relative masses of the solid bodies of the Solar System. Earth at 48% and Venus at 39% dominate. Bodies less massive than Pluto are not visible at this scale. Relative masses of the rounded moons of the Solar System.
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. The prototypical dwarf planet is Pluto, which for decades was regarded as a planet before the "dwarf" concept ...
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.
However, William M. Grundy et al. argue that objects in the size range of 400–1000 km, with albedos less than ≈0.2 and densities of ≈1.2 g/cm 3 or less, have likely never compressed into fully solid bodies, let alone differentiated, and so are highly unlikely to be dwarf planets. [17] It is not clear if Varda has a low or a high density.
Pluto is more than twice the diameter and a dozen times the mass of Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt. It is less massive than the dwarf planet Eris, a trans-Neptunian object discovered in 2005, though Pluto has a larger diameter of 2,376.6 km [5] compared to Eris's approximate diameter of 2,326 km. [126]
It is the largest planet in the Solar System, with a diameter of 142,984 km (88,846 mi) at its equator, giving it a volume 1,321 times that of the Earth. [ 2 ] [ 42 ] Its average density, 1.326 g/cm 3 , [ d ] is lower than those of the four terrestrial planets .
Neptune is the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 times the mass of Earth and slightly more massive, but denser and smaller, than fellow ice giant Uranus.