Renerpho, Public domainHaumea
Dwarf planet · Dwarf planet
An egg-shaped dwarf planet spinning every four hours, with its own ring
Overview
Haumea (minor-planet number 136108) is a dwarf planet located beyond Neptune's orbit. It was discovered in 2004 by a team headed by Mike Brown of Caltech at the Palomar Observatory, and formally announced in 2005 by a team headed by José Luis Ortiz Moreno at the Sierra Nevada Observatory in Spain, who had discovered it that year in precovery images taken by the team in 2003. From that announcement, it received the provisional designation 2003 EL61.
Source: Wikipedia
Why it matters
- Rotates in just under 4 hours, the fastest of any large body in the Solar System, which stretches it into an ellipsoid.
- A stellar occultation in 2017 revealed a ring — the first found around a trans-Neptunian object.
- Has two moons and a family of icy fragments thought to come from an ancient giant impact.
System
- Discovered
- 2003 · direct observation
- Discoverers
- Aceituno, F. J., Santos-Sanz, P., Ortiz, J. L.
- Star
- Sun · G2 V · 5,772 K · 1 M☉
- System
- 8 known planets
Orbit in the Solar System
| World | Period | Distance | Radius | Mass | Temp. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mercury | 88 d | 0.387 AU | 0.38 R⊕ | 0.055 M⊕ | 440 K |
| Venus | 224.7 d | 0.723 AU | 0.95 R⊕ | 0.82 M⊕ | 737 K |
| Earth | 365.2 d | 1 AU | 1 R⊕ | 1 M⊕ | 288 K |
| Mars | 687 d | 1.52 AU | 0.53 R⊕ | 0.11 M⊕ | 208 K |
| Ceres | 4.6 yr | 2.77 AU | 0.07 R⊕ | 0.94 ×10²¹ kg | — |
| Jupiter | 11.9 yr | 5.2 AU | 1 R♃ | 1 M♃ | 163 K |
| Saturn | 29.4 yr | 9.57 AU | 0.84 R♃ | 95.11 M⊕ | 133 K |
| Uranus | 83.7 yr | 19.16 AU | 0.36 R♃ | 14.53 M⊕ | 78 K |
| Neptune | 163.7 yr | 30.18 AU | 3.88 R⊕ | 17.08 M⊕ | 73 K |
| Pluto | 247.9 yr | 39.48 AU | 0.19 R⊕ | 13 ×10²¹ kg | 48 K |
| Haumea | 282 yr | 43.1 AU | 0.12 R⊕ | — | 50 K |
| Makemake | 306.6 yr | 45.6 AU | 0.11 R⊕ | 3.1 ×10²¹ kg | — |
| Eris | 561.3 yr | 67.9 AU | 0.18 R⊕ | 17 ×10²¹ kg | 43 K |
| Sedna | 12,676.2 yr | 544 AU | 0.08 R⊕ | — | 12 K |
this worldhabitable zone 0.95 AU – 1.67 AUlog distance scaleorbital phases are arbitrarydashed = dwarf planets
By the numbers
- Radius
- 0.12 R⊕780 km
- Orbital period
- 282 yr
- Distance from Sun
- 43.1 AU6,448 million km
- Eccentricity
- 0.194elliptical
- Mean temperature
- 50 K
Sources
Image: Renerpho, Public domain · Public domain · image page
Text: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Taglines and highlights are editorial.