We have already seen that the universe does not stop surprising us. haumea It is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt, part of the Trans-Neptunian group of objects. Its official name is (136108) Haumea. It is ellipsoidal in shape, slightly smaller than Pluto. Haumea has two known natural satellites: Hi'iaka and Namaka. It draws a lot of attention because it is shaped like a potato.
In this article we are going to explain what are the characteristics, discovery and curiosities of Haumea.
Haumea discovery
Haumea is the third dwarf planet in order of distance from the Sun, since its transit orbit follows that of Pluto. Haumea has a magnitude very faint apparent value of 17,3, making it the third-brightest Kuiper Belt object, behind Pluto and Makemake.
Haumea was first discovered on December 28, 2004 by American astronomers Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David Rabinowitz at Caltech's Mount Palomar Observatory. They discovered it by analyzing photographs taken on December 6 of the same year.
However, they did not immediately announce the discovery of Haumea to allow time to study the features of the object in detail and to present a more complete picture to the scientific community.
Meanwhile, on July 27, 2005, Spanish astronomers José Luis Ortiz Moreno, Francisco José Arseturo Castro, and Pablo Santos-San Adams announced the discovery of the object. They "discovered" it by reanalyzing images taken on March 7, 2003. They then searched through earlier archives and found it in images from 1955. So they announced the discovery on July 29, 2005; Brown recognized them as the authors of the discovery.
However, it was soon discovered that on July 26, 2005, computers from the Andalusian Institute of Astronomy accessed the computers in the telescope where Brown and his team were making the observations. This computer stores the coordinates of the position in the sky towards which the telescope points for each object found.
Also, a week before Ortiz's announcement, Brown published an abstract for an astronomy conference in September where he plans to present the discovery. In this summary, Brown refers to the actual codes the telescope's computer provides for each object he finds; these codes are a reference to easily look up the data in the list.
Not surprisingly, Brown suspects that Ortiz's team used these codes to search the telescope's computers for the information necessary to know exactly where the observation was made. Brown asked the UAI to award the discovery to his team, not Ortiz's.
Ortiz admitted to accessing the telescope files, but denied any malicious intent, saying they were simply checking to see if any new objects had been discovered. Since then, both Brown and Ortiz are listed as discoverers, although not officially.
characteristics of the planet
One of the first things that strikes you about the dwarf planet is its shape, an ellipse, unlike other objects that tend to be spherical or irregular in shape. The second characteristic is its enormous rate of turn in relation to its size: Haumea's day lasts about four hours. We don't know much about the planet's surface, but experts believe it is a rocky planet covered in a layer of frozen water.
Sometimes the only way to estimate the size of a trans-Neptunian object is from its magnitude, assuming a certain albedo value. For larger objects, thermal emission can provide an independent measure of albedo. For Haumea, the diameter can be more precisely calculated from known values of mass and density.
According to Kepler's law, its mass can be calculated at 4,01×1021 kg, which is equivalent to one third of the mass of Pluto, or 6% of the mass of the Moon. Haumea is known to be a very fast spinning object. The force exerted by this rotation causes an ellipsoid to form, which also depends on its density: 2,02 g/cm3. Denser objects stretch less.
Based on the mass and density values, the distance of the three axes of its ellipsoidal shape can be calculated to be approximately: 2100×1680×1074 km, the first value being its largest diameter. Haumea is one of the largest trans-Neptunian objects ever discovered; the third after Eris and Pluto.
Orbit and rotation of Haumea
Haumea's orbit is typical of common Kuiper Belt objects, with an orbital period of 283,12 Earth years. Haumea passed through aphelion in 1991, 51,59 AU from the sun, its average orbital radius is 43,12 AU, and perihelion is 34,65 AU. Its orbital eccentricity is 0,1964, slightly larger than that of other members of its collision family.
With a period of 3 hours, 54 minutes, and 54 seconds, Haumea is the fastest known rotation of any object in the solar system with a diameter greater than 100 kilometers. It has an escape velocity of 0,71 km/s.
The Gemini telescope was able to obtain a spectrum of Haumea, which showed a large amount of water ice similar to that seen on the surface of Pluto's moon Charon. Brown's team noted the presence of water ice in crystalline form. This feature has only been observed in Quaoar. This finding points to the presence of ice formation processes due to the reappearance of new material on the surface.
surface and satellite
Haumea has two known natural satellites: Hi'iaka and Namaka. Both were discovered by Brown's group. Hi'iaka was first discovered on January 26, 2005. It is estimated that it may have been about 310 kilometers in diameter. It orbits Haumea approximately 45.500 km in 41,12 days.
Namaga is the smaller and innermost of Haumea's two moons. Discovered on June 30, 2005, it is about two thousand times less massive than Haumea and has a diameter of almost 170 kilometers. Namaka takes about 18 days to circle Haumea, some 39.300 kilometers away.
I hope that with this information you can learn more about Haumea, its discovery and characteristics.