Ceres (dwarf planet) Ceres (dwarf planet) Ceres (; minor-planet designation: 1 Ceres) is the largest object in the asteroid belt that lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, slightly closer to Mars' orbit. With a diameter of , Ceres is the largest of the minor planets, and the only dwarf planet, inside Neptune's orbit. It is the 33rd-largest known body in the Solar System. Ceres is composed of rock and ice and is estimated to comprise approximately one-third of the mass of the entire asteroid belt. Ceres is the only object in the asteroid belt known to be rounded by its own
Small Solar System body with the exception of the dwarf planets Pluto, Haumea, Makemake, Eris, and others that may turn out to be dwarf planets. It is not presently clear whether a lower size bound will be established as part of the definition of small Solar System bodies in the future, or if it will encompass all material down to the level of meteoroids, the smallest macroscopic bodies in orbit around the Sun. (On a microscopic level there are even smaller objects such as interplanetary dust, particles of solar wind and free particles of hydrogen.) Except for the largest, which are in hydrostatic equilibrium,