Pluto, our tiny intrasolar neighbor, has a surface area of only a scant 6.45 million square miles. That might seem like quite a few square miles to sling around, but by comparison, that’s only one-third of one percent of the Earth’s total surface and small enough to fit entirely within the borders of Russia (6.6 million square miles). Pluto is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond Neptune. It was the first Kuiper belt object to be discovered and is the largest known plutoid (or ice dwarf).