Dwarf planet to gradually become tidally locked, such that it always presents the same face to its companion. An extreme example of this is the Pluto–Charon system, where both bodies are tidally locked to each other. Earth's Moon is also tidally locked, as are many satellites of the gas giants. The upper and lower size and mass limits of dwarf planets have not been specified by the IAU. There is no defined upper limit, and an object larger or more massive than Mercury that has not "cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit" would be classified as a dwarf planet. The lower limit
Dwarf planet has itself been somewhat controversial, as it could imply that these bodies are planets, much as dwarf stars are stars. This is the conception of the Solar System that Stern promoted when he coined the phrase. The older word "planetoid" ("having the form of a planet") has no such connotation, and is also used by astronomers for bodies that fit the IAU definition. Brown states that "planetoid" is "a perfectly good word" that has been used for these bodies for years, and that the use of the term "dwarf planet" for a non-planet is "dumb", but that it was motivated