Analysis by Ian O’Neill, DiscoveryNews

They may have their differences, but it seems that dwarf planets Eris and Pluto have a lot more in common than just their planetary status.

The larger Eris orbits the sun at a distance three-times that of Pluto, so it may not seem possible that we’ll ever get a glimpse of what its surface is made of. But scientists from Northern Arizona University (NAU) have shown that even this lonely object can be probed from afar.

At the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences conference held in Pasadena this week, NAU professor Stephen Tegler presented the results of a two-year study that combined laboratory ice work and observations from two U.S. telescopes.
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