In studying Pluto, “we can get a sense of what goes on in the Kuiper belt, and how it’s able to produce these geologically active bodies that are so small and distant from the sun but still have enough internal energy to drive these processes,” says Karunatillake. Pluto could be a sign that just because another world is far away from the sun doesn’t mean it’s completely dead.

As with Ceres, however, there just hasn’t been enough time since the last mission to justify greenlighting a new one yet. We may need to wait another decade before NASA or another institution thinks it’s time to launch another spacecraft to Pluto.