Distances in our solar system are mind boggling especially when we consider that the circumference of our own planet is 24,901 miles. We see that as massive but compared to the sizes of other planets and their distances from us this is miniscule.
What Is Haumea?
Haumea is a fast spinning dwarf planet located in the trans-Neptunian Kuiper belt where it shares space with fellow dwarf planets such as Makemake, Pluto and Eris. Ceres, the other dwarf planet of our solar system, sits closer to the sun between Mars and Jupiter.
Roughly the same size as Pluto, Haumea’s discovery along with that of Eris and Makemake created a new classification of planets which saw Pluto demoted to Dwarf planet.
Haumea in terms of mass is about one-third that of Pluto, and 1/1400 that of Earth itself. Its shape has not been directly observed as yet but calculations from its light curve suggest it being a Jacobi ellipsoid. Its major axis is roughly twice as long as its minor.
Haumea ranges between 7.7 – 7.3 billion kilometers from Earth over the next few years but will reach its closest point to the planet on July 26th 2100. At that point it will be 5,489,394,503 kilometers from Earth.
Haumea’s Structure
Gravity played a part in pulling together gas and dust to create the countless bodies in the Kuiper belt including of course Haumea. Although it is hard to be sure of the exact structure of a body so far from earth it is thought Haumea may be made of rock with an icy coating over it.
Little is known of the dwarf planet’s surface and it seems unlikely it has any form of atmosphere or magnetosphere. Essentially there is still a great deal to learn about this substantial dwarf planet.
Does Haumea Have Moons?
Haumea to date according to NASA has two known moons. These are Namaka (Hawaiian water spirit), its inner moon, and Hi’iaka (patron goddess of Hawaii), the outer moon. They are named for two mythological daughters of Haumea, the dwarf planet’s namesake.
This dwarf planet is also the only known Kuiper belt object to have rings. This was determined when Haumea passed in front of a star in 2017.
History of the Observation of Haumea
Haumea is so far away from earth that unlike 7 of our solar system’s planets we can not see it with the naked eye. Even with the advent of telescopes it would take hundreds of years to first image and then discover the existence of Haumea.
There is some contention regarding who actually discovered Haumea. It was either a team made up of Mike Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David Rabinowitz or José Luis Ortiz Moreno and his team at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía at Sierra Nevada Observatory in Spain.
The Mike Brown team were reviewing images captured on October 21st 2003 using the 1.2 m Samuel Oschin Schmidt telescope at Palomar Observatory, California. It was over a year after the images were taken that this group on January 5th 2005 discovered the presence of Haumea as well as other planetary objects such as Makemake (two days earlier) and Eris (two days earlier).
The team did not immediately report their findings as they wanted to observe more about the potential orbit before going public. On July 27th 2005 however Ortiz’s team announced the discovery of Haumea.
Initially Brown accepted that the Spanish team may have beat them to the punch in the discovery but was to discover that the Spanish observatory had accessed his observation logs the day before they announced discovering Haumea.
Although the Spanish observatory is credited as the origin of the discovery because of reporting standards being met, neither group has been given credit for the discovery because of the possible contentious nature of Spain’s discovery.
It should be noted that an independent committee settled on the name for the dwarf planet which just so happened to be the name suggested by Caltech. This may have been a concession to avoid a scandal in the community although Spain’s suggestion would not have been suitable anyway.
Mike Brown’s team rushed to announce their discoveries of Eris and Makemake soon after Spain beat them to punch over Haumea. They were likely worried the same may happen with these dwarf planets and wanted to avoid this if at all possible.
Haumea was chosen as the official name in honor of the Hawaiian matron goddess of Hawaii. Associated with fertility and childbirth Haumea did fit traditional naming practices for Kuiper belt objects. The tradition established by the IAU was that Kuiper belt objects be named in honor of creation deities of which Haumea was suitable. Spain’s suggestion of Ataecina the goddess of the Spring would not have been suitable.
Space Exploration
The New Horizons spacecraft first observed Haumea from afar in October 2007, January 2017, and finally May 2020. The spacecraft’s outbound trajectory allowed for observations of Haumea at high phase angles which would not have been possible from Earth. This helped in the discovery of the light scattering properties and phase curve behavior of the dwarf planet’s surface.
In consideration for a future mission it was Joel Poncy and colleagues who calculated that a flyby mission to Haumea could take upwards of 14.25 years to complete using a gravity assist at Jupiter. Due to varying distances from Earth at any time, optimum dates for a future mission launch are November 1st 2026, September 23rd 2037 and October 29th 2038.
What Is the Sun?
The orb that is visible in our daylight sky which we know as the sun is in fact a star. This star is classified as a yellow dwarf and is central to our solar system. Earth and the other planets of our solar system orbit this vast star. In fact it is our own planet’s rotation and orbit which creates the appearance of the sun moving across our sky. It itself is stationary as we revolve around it.
How Big Is the Sun?
The sun on a clear day is visible from the earth and in fact we should never stare directly at it. This is despite it being 93 million miles away so just how big is this giant orange orb? Scientists estimate that the sun has a radius of roughly 435,000 miles.
This may sound massive but there are many known stars which are much larger. In comparison to our planet however the son is roughly 330,000 times the mass of earth and we could fit our planet into the sun 1.3 million times.
What Holds the Sun Together?
The sun because it is a star is actually a huge ball of gas which is held together by its own internal gravitational forces. It is made up of several regions which include in order from the center out:
- Core
- Radioactive zone
- Convection zone
- Photosphere
- Chromosphere
- Transition zone
- Corona
Once material exits the corona of the sun at supersonic speeds, it becomes what is known as a solar wind. This solar wind forms a huge magnetic bubble of sorts around the sun which is known as the heliosphere. It is this heliosphere that extends beyond the orbit of all the planets in our solar system. Essentially our planet as well as all others in the solar system are held within the sun’s atmosphere.
How Far Is Haumea From the Sun?
In order to understand just how far Haumea is from the Sun it is important to note that a single orbit around this star takes the dwarf planet 285 Earth years. An astronomical unit (AU) is equivalent to the distance between Earth and the Sun so when we consider Haumea is 43 AU from our solar system’s only star that is considerable. This equates to roughly 4,010,000,000 miles (6,452,000,000 kilometers) on average.
Final Thoughts
This small dwarf planet sits in the far reaches of our solar system over 4 billion miles from the Sun. It is so far away in fact that it would take over 14 years for an unmanned spacecraft to reach Haumea to perform a flyby.