3. Tiny Planets
Found Year: 2005
Mike Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David Rabinowitz found it.
Where: The Kuiper Belt
Using photographs taken two years prior, Brown, Trujillo, and Rabinowitz’s team came to the conclusion in 2005 that Eris would be classified as a dwarf planet. A dwarf planet is not a moon and has not cleared the debris in its orbit, yet it is hefty enough to support a spherical, or largely spherical, shape.
Small Planets ©Shutterstock/Reedom_Marussia
A year later, Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet and regained its planetary designation as a result of the trio’s discoveries. Another dwarf planet, Ceres, is located in the inner solar system, hanging out in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, whereas the majority of dwarf planets are situated in the Kuiper belt beyond Neptune.
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