174567 Varda is a large trans-Neptunian object, discovered on 21 June 2003 by American astronomer Jeffrey A. Larsen using survey images taken with the 0.9-meter Spacewatch telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory. As a dynamically hot classical Kuiper belt object, Varda orbits within the Kuiper belt region. Stellar occultations in 2018 show that Varda is likely an oblate spheroid with a flattening of 0.07 and an area equivalent diameter of 740±14 km. Other triaxial ellipsoid shape models remain mathematically unconstrained. The total mass of the binary system is approximately 2.675+0.048−0.049×1020 kg with Varda contributing around 86 to 90% of it. Varda's bulk density estimates remain highly ambiguous. James Webb Space Telescope data shows a surface temperature of 44 K. Abundant frozen carbon dioxide dominates its surface. Because of its large size, some astronomers including Michael E. Brown and Noemi Pinilla-Alonso have considered it a possible dwarf planet. However, it is hypothesized that trans-Neptunian objects in the size range of 400–1000 km, such as Varda, have probably never compressed into fully solid bodies, let alone fall into hydrostatic equilibrium, and so are unlikely to be dwarf planets, though the density calculations for Varda are highly ambiguous. It is not clear if Varda's density is high enough to compressed into a fully solid body. Varda has one known moon named Ilmarë. The moon's diameter measures approximately 403±40 km. Varda and Ilmarë are likely mutually tidally locked. The binary system exhibits a very large mass ratio, comparable to that of Pluto and Charon.
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