{"id":53009,"date":"2024-01-06T09:13:45","date_gmt":"2024-01-06T09:13:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/8102f180-557b-43c4-9dab-ad1d4c95a1b9"},"modified":"2024-01-06T10:32:35","modified_gmt":"2024-01-06T10:32:35","slug":"a-guide-to-haumea-the-rugby-ball-dwarf-planet","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/rss_feed\/a-guide-to-haumea-the-rugby-ball-dwarf-planet\/","title":{"rendered":"A guide to Haumea, the rugby ball dwarf planet"},"content":{"rendered":"

A guide to the ringed dwarf planet known to have its own ring system. <\/p>

By Russell Deeks\n <\/p>

Published: Saturday, 06 January 2024 at 09:13 AM<\/p>

\n\n

Dwarf planet Haumea \u2013 which lies in the distant Kuiper Belt<\/a> and takes its name from a Hawaiian fertility goddess \u2013 wasn\u2019t discovered until 2005.<\/p>

But Haumea has a number of distinctive features that make it one of our Solar System\u2019s most intriguing objects.<\/p>

Let’s take a look at some of the most fascinating facts about this weird and wonderful dwarf planet.<\/p>

Shape<\/strong><\/h2>

Perhaps the most obvious of these is that, unlike most of the big chunks of rock floating in space, dwarf planet Haumea is not round.<\/p>

Instead, Haumea is a triaxial ellipsoid, which in plain English means it\u2019s shaped something like a rugby ball or American football.<\/p>

This unusual morphology is a result of its high rotational velocity.<\/p>

Haumea is known to have a ring system (artist’s illustration). Credit: IAA-CSIC\/UHU<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Rotation<\/strong><\/h2>

One of the fastest-spinning objects in the Solar System, dwarf planet Haumea rotates on its axis in less than four hours.<\/p>

This means that a day on Haumea lasts about four hours.<\/p>

Were it to spin any faster, say NASA scientists, Haumea would eventually erode away into a dumbbell shape, and then break in two.<\/p>

Size<\/strong><\/h2>

Haumea is also tiny: its average radius is just 780km, compared to Pluto\u2019s 1,188km or Earth\u2019s 6,371km, and its mass is just 1\/1,400th<\/sup> that of Earth.<\/p>

But Haumea hasn\u2019t let that hold it back, spawning a ring system as well as two moons, Namaka and Hi\u2019iaka.<\/p>

It is, in fact, the only Kuiper Belt object known to have rings or satellites.<\/p>

\"Hubble
Hubble Space Telescope image of dwarf planet Haumea and its two moons. Credit: ESA\/NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Surface and atmosphere<\/strong><\/h2>

As it is too far away to be imaged directly by telescopes, we don\u2019t know a huge amount about Haumea\u2019s surface or atmosphere.<\/p>

But it is believed to be covered in water ice, with an average surface temperature of \u2013240\u00b0C.<\/p>

Dwarf planet categorisation<\/strong><\/h2>

In 2008, Haumea was officially designated as a dwarf planet, making it one of just five such objects in our Solar System.<\/p>

The others are Pluto, Ceres, Makemake and Eris, although at least five other strong candidates for dwarf planet status are known to exist.<\/p>

This recognition followed a minor controversy over Haumea\u2019s discovery, with a team at the Palomar Observatory, led by Caltech\u2019s Mike Brown, announcing in 2005 that they\u2019d spotted it in data from 2024.<\/p>

Only for a team at Spain\u2019s Sierra Nevada Observatory to declare a week later that they\u2019d found it in THEIR data from 2003.<\/p>

Since then, evidence of Haumea\u2019s existence has been \u2018precovered\u2019 in images and data from as long ago as 1955.<\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n

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