From Pluto to Ceres: A dwarf planet word search

An illustration of dwarf planet Haumea, its two moons and a narrow ring of rocky particles.

An illustration of the dwarf planet Haumea, its two moons and a narrow ring of rocky particles. (Image credit: Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library/Getty Images)

Dwarf planets may be small, but they're some of the most intriguing objects in our cosmic neighborhood.

These icy bodies orbit the sun just like the major planets, yet they follow their own rules, often traveling along elongated paths far beyond Neptune. Their distant homes in the Kuiper Belt and scattered disk make them difficult to study, but every new mission reveals something surprising.

Think of this quiz as your own mini‑expedition to the outer solar system —no spacecraft required.

See how well you score below!

Kenna Hughes-Castleberry is the Content Manager at Space.com. Formerly, she was the Science Communicator at JILA, a physics research institute. Kenna is also a freelance science journalist. Her beats include quantum technology, AI, animal intelligence, corvids, and cephalopods.

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