AstroKids › Everything in the sky › Haumea
dwarf planet · Kuiper belt

Haumea

It spins so fast that it has been squashed into the shape of an egg. A whole day there is shorter than a school day — under four hours from one sunrise to the next. It has two little moons and a ring of its own.

🚀 Travel there
Haumea — Drawn, not photographed.

What it is

Fast-spinning, egg-shaped dwarf planet with its own ring and two moons.

Dwarf planet: Round, but shares its orbit with other rubble. Every kind of thing there is →

Can you see it?

No. No telescope on Earth will show you this one; it is here to be understood, not seen. It is here because it is worth knowing about — and because leaving it out would make the sky look emptier than it is.

Worth knowing about Haumea

Haumea is about 1/3 of Earth, but shaped like a squashed egg — it spins so fast its own shape gets stretched. In weight, about 1/1,500th of Earth. Sunlight takes 6 hours to reach Haumea — on average, because that distance changes as it goes round. One Haumea 'day' is shorter than a school day!

Its surface
Icy surface, has its own ring and two moons.
How did anyone measure the Earth in the first place?
The numbers
Across1 560 km
Distance from the Sun, on average~43 AU · sunlight takes 6 hours
Once round its orbit284.1 Earth years
One day there3.9 hours

How anyone knows this

Nobody flew a tape measure out there. Every number on this page was worked out from the ground:

What it belongs to

☀️ Everything the Sun holds, in one place📖 How the solar system fits together

Then go outside

Not this one. But the sky over your head is full of ones you can see, and the Planetarium knows which.

🌙 Plan an evening outside🌌 Everything else in the sky