Pluto before Charon was discovered. Pluto is more than twice the diameter and a dozen times the mass of the dwarf planet 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 2376.6 km compared to Eris's approximate diameter of 2326 km. Determinations of Pluto's size had been complicated by its atmosphere, and hydrocarbon haze. In March 2014, Lellouch, de Bergh et al. published findings regarding methane mixing ratios in Pluto's atmosphere consistent with a Plutonian diameter greater than 2360 km,
Dwarf planet list of hundreds of candidate objects, ranging from "nearly certain" to "possible" dwarf planets."" As of Feb 2018, Brown's list includes 952 objects, identifying ten known trans-Neptunian objects—the four accepted by the IAU plus the six bodies: , , , , and —as "near certain", with another 26 "highly likely". Notably, (1535 km) has a larger diameter than the dwarf planet Makemake (1430 km). Stern states that there are more than a dozen known dwarf planets. Only two of these bodies, Ceres and Pluto, have been observed in enough detail to demonstrate that they actually fit the IAU's definition. The