The weirdest dwarf planet in the solar system?
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.023475
Haumea looks and spins approximately like the image above (Photo credit: Caltech)Discovered on Dec. 28, 2004 (cataloged as 2003 EL61 and nicknamed “Santa” for a time), the minor planet now known as the dwarf planet Haumea, to honor its Hawaiian discovery, is as big across as Pluto and one-third of its mass, but shaped something “like a big squashed cigar,” said one of the astronomers who studies the object, Mike Brown of Caltech .Haumea—which has a satellite moon named Namaka—is currently undergoing a series of mutual occultations and eclipses with Namaka. “Study of these events will allow us to study this system with unprecedented detail,” says Brown. Related Link Mutual events of Haumea and Namaka
