Haumea

Dwarf planet Haumea was originally designated 2003 EL61 (and nicknamed Santa by one discovery team). Haumea is located in the Kuiper Belt, a doughnut-shaped region of icy bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune.

Quick Facts

A day on Haumea is about four Earth hours.

It takes 285 Earth years for Haumea to orbit the Sun.

Haumea's radius is about 385 miles or 620 kilometers.

Haumea has two known moons: Namaka is the inner moon, and Hi'iaka

Haumea Facts

Haumea is an oval-shaped dwarf planet that is one of the fastest rotating large objects in our solar system. The fast spin distorts Haumea's shape, making this dwarf planet look like a football.

Discovery

Two teams claim credit for discovering Haumea citing evidence from observations made in 2003 and 2004. The International Astronomical Union’s Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature lists the discovery location as Sierra Nevada Observatory in Spain on March 7, 2003, but no official discoverer is listed.

Namesake

Haumea is named after the Hawaiian goddess of fertility.

Potential for Life

Haumea is extremely cold and doesn't appear to have conditions suitable for life.

Size and Distance

With an equatorial diameter of about 1,080 miles (about 1,740 kilometers), Haumea is about 1/7 the width of Earth. If Earth were the size of a nickel, Haumea would be about as big as a sesame seed. From an average distance of 4 billion miles (6.5 billion kilometers), Haumea is 43 astronomical units away from the Sun. One astronomical unit (abbreviated as AU), is the distance from the Sun to Earth. From this distance, it takes sunlight 6 hours to travel from the Sun to Haumea.

Orbit and Rotation

Haumea takes 285 Earth years to make one trip around the Sun. As Haumea orbits the Sun, it completes one rotation every 4 hours, making it one of the fastest rotating large objects in our solar system.

It is possible that a large object impacted Haumea billions of years ago and set off Haumea's spin and created its moons.

Moons

Haumea has two known moons: Namaka is the inner moon, and Hi'iaka is the outer moon. Both were discovered in 2005 and named for the mythological daughters of Haumea. Hi'iaka is the patron goddess of the island of Hawaii and of hula dancers. Namaka is a water spirit in Hawaiian mythology.

Rings

Haumea is the first known Kuiper Belt Object to have rings. Scientists announced the discovery in 2017 after watching the dwarf planet pass in front of a star.

Formation

Dwarf planet Haumea is a member of a group of objects that orbit in a disc-like zone beyond the orbit of Neptune called the Kuiper Belt. This distant realm is populated with thousands of miniature icy worlds which formed early in the history of our solar system about 4.5 billion years ago. These icy, rocky bodies are called Kuiper Belt objects, transneptunian objects, or plutoids.