Haumea
A stretched-out dwarf planet
Haumea is a distant dwarf planet beyond Neptune. Instead of a neat ball, it looks more like a stretched-out ball. It spins very quickly, turning once in about four hours! This fast spinning is connected with its unusual shape. Water ice covers the surface of this cold world.
Haumea has two known moons and a ring. No spacecraft has photographed it close up. Scientists study its distant light and watch it pass in front of stars. Those observations help reveal its size and shape, even from far away. The picture in our journey is an artist’s idea, rather than a real close-up photograph.
Play space games → Explore in the planetarium →In the planetarium you can spin this world and look at it from every side.
Artist’s impression · the surface is an illustration.
Sources and images
Celestial maps: Solar System Scope / INOVE · CC BY 4.0. Thumbnails were reduced and shaded. Artistic SVG maps were created for this project.