Haumea Facts
Haumea Facts
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| Interesting Haumea Facts: |
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| Haumea was discovered in 2004 by Mike Brown and his team at Caltech at an observatory in the United States. In 2005 Jose Luis Ortiz Moreno in Spain made the same claim. |
| The planet was given its name Haumea under the guidelines established by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) that Kuiper belt objects must be named after beings in mythology associated with creation. |
| It is believed that Haumea was created about 4.5 billion years ago, approximately the same time as the Sun. |
| Haumea was named a dwarf planet because of the belief that it was massive enough for its own gravity to have rounded it but not massive enough to remove similar objects from its region. |
| The equatorial diameter of Haumea is between 1,960 km to 1,518 km. |
| The polar diameter of Haumea is 996 km. |
| One day on Haumea is only 3.9 Earth hours. It rotates very rapidly and may be the reason that the planet is so elongated. |
| The third closest dwarf planet to the sun is Haumea. |
| Haumea's rotation is so rapid that it is one of the densest dwarf planets yet discovered. |
| Mike Brown's team also discovered Haumea's two moons Namaka and Hi'iaka, in 2005. The moons were named after the goddess of childbirth Haumea's two daughters. |
| It is believed that the moons of Haumea were created when Haumea collided with a large object possibly billions of years ago. The resulting fragments became the moons. |
| Because Haumea is so bright it is possible to see in the dark sky at night if using a good quality telescope. Even an amateur telescope will work as long as its quality is good enough. |
| It takes 285 years for Haumea to orbit the sun. |
| Haumea is only the fifth planet to be named a dwarf planet. |
| Haumea is the fourth largest of five dwarf planets known to exist. |
| The debate about who discovered Haumea began because Mike Brown's team did not publish the discovery until July 20th, despite collecting the evidence on May 6th, 2004. They first saw it on December 28th, 2004 and named it Santa at first. |
| On July 27th, 2005, results of Spanish data collected on March 7th, 2003 were released, showing the discovery of Haumea. This led to the discoveries being contested. |
| Mike Brown's team discover of Haumea was recognized in 2008 by the International Astronomical Union, over the Spanish name Ataecina, after determining the Spanish team may have committed fraud in its claim. |
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