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,
Quasi-satellite known to have accidental quasi-satellites. In the case of Pluto, the known accidental quasi-satellite, 15810 Arawn, is, like Pluto, a plutino, and is forced into this configuration by the gravitational influence of Neptune. This dynamical behavior is recurrent, Arawn becomes a quasi-satellite of Pluto every 2.4 Myr and remains in that configuration for nearly 350,000 years. Quasi-satellite A quasi-satellite is an object in a specific type of co-orbital configuration (1:1 orbital resonance) with a planet where the object stays close to that planet over many orbital periods. A quasi-satellite's orbit around the Sun takes exactly the same time as the