• Question: Which dwarf planet is the smallest?

    Asked by funkymonkey to Adam, Catherine, Karen, Leila, Nazim on 16 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Adam Stevens

      Adam Stevens answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      Hm, I thought I answered this. The smallest official one is Ceres, which lives in the asteroid belt.

    • Photo: Karen Masters

      Karen Masters answered on 17 Mar 2012:

      I thought I answered this too – my answer was about how massive you have to be to be classed as a dwarf planet (which must make itself spherical under its own gravity)….

    • Photo: Leila Battison

      Leila Battison answered on 17 Mar 2012:

      I haven’t answered this one!

      The difficulty is how you decide if something is an asteroid or if it is a dwarf planet. Something has to be a certain minimum size (or mass) to become round enough to be called a planet, so the smallest things are actually asteroids.

      The smallest actual dwarf planet is Ceres, which is only as wide as the UK top to bottom!!

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