What Vera Rubin Observatory’s first new dwarf planet means

Back in 2006, the International Astronomical Union controversially demoted Pluto . This composite image of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, was based on photographs taken by the New Horizons mission as it flew by the Plutonian planetary system back in 2015. Charon’s appearance is vastly different from Pluto’s, but both bodies are shown with the correct relative size and albedo. The surface features on Pluto show evidence of recent changes, indicating that the next time we visit Pluto to image it at this level of precision, it may exhibit a remarkably different appearance. Credit : NASA, APL