A growing number of astronomers argued for Pluto to be declassified as a planet, because many similar objects approaching its size had been found in the same region of the Solar System (the Kuiper belt) during the 1990s and early 2000s. Pluto was found to be just one "small" body in a population of thousands. They often referred to the demotion of the asteroids as a precedent, although that had been done based on their geophysical differences from planets rather than their being in a belt. Some of the larger trans-Neptunian objects, such as Quaoar, Sedna, Eris, and Haumea, were heralded in the popular press as the tenth planet.