user

Submitted

news

view all

Find, view and share videos about news and entertainment from around the Web.
See Videos »

most

COMMENTED

stories

most

RECENT

comments

NobodyKnowsMe619 on Obama Gets Personal, Signs Smoking Bill
CMorse1052 on Typo in Verdict Changes Man's Sentence
Suzy1945 on Photo Shows Incredible Volcanic Eruption
ggreyspy on Does President Obama Still Smoke?
LatiinchiiCk621 on Kids' Chorus Takes on Lady GaGa

News Alerts

The latest updates sent straight to your inbox.

Get AOL News Alerts »

Is This Object Weirdest in Solar System?

Hubble Telescope Will Study Unique Cosmic Curiosity

By Andrea Thompson

LiveScience

posted: 12 HOURS 18 MINUTES AGO

comments: 114

filed under: Science News

Text SizeAAA

Skip over this content

(June 22) - The dwarf planets and other objects that litter the Kuiper belt in the far reaches of our solar system are a strange bunch, but astronomers have found what they think might be the weirdest one.

Discovered on Dec. 28, 2004 (catalogued 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.

Skip over this content

From its shape to its satellites, Haumea is a strange object, but one that could shed light on the history of collisions in the solar system, as well as the early environment of the Kuiper belt, which sits out beyond the orbit of Neptune.

Fastest Spinner

When astronomers first found this object, they noticed that it was getting brighter and fainter by about 25 percent every two hours. If it were round, that observation would likely mean the object rotates every two hours, an incredible rate that would rip it apart, Brown said.

Astronomers determined that it was more likely that Haumea is elongated and rotating every four hours.

"We see this thing tumbling end over end getting brighter and fainter," Brown said.

Haumea is the fastest spinning object in the solar system.

The object's odd shape is a direct result of the spin. "Because of this spin, it pulls itself outward" at the equator in a bulge, Brown explained. The Earth has a less pronounced version of this bulge for the same reason.

The hyperactive spin of Haumea means that if you were standing on its surface, "your gravity would be very different," Brown said. Specifically, it would hold you down with much less of a grip than the Earth.

"The faster it spins, the more it wants to fling you outward," Brown said.

But Haumea's football shape and frantic spin aren't the only weird things about it. It also has an unusual satellite.

Surprise Satellite

Several Kuiper belt objects are known to each have a satellite orbiting them, thought in many cases to be a smaller body captured by the bigger object's gravity.

Skip over this content

FEED

More from LiveScience

More Stories

But it was apparent that Haumea's satellite, Hi'iaka didn't fit that mold. "It's way too small to be one of these captured objects," Brown said. It was also made of water ice.

It turned out that Hi'iaka did fit the situation of a body hitting Haumea and scattering ice debris throughout the area.

Haumea is big enough that it differentiated, like the Earth, so that its heaviest components settled to the core and the lightest, specifically ice, stayed at the surface. So when it collided, the pieces that were spewed out were mostly pure ice, the thinking goes.

Big Collision

Subsequent observations of Hi'iaka determined its orbit and turned up another surprise: a second satellite, Namaka. No other Kuiper belt object is known to possess more than one satellite. Namaka is another product of the collision that shattered Haumea, likely sometime during the early history of the solar system, which formed 4.5 billion years ago.

The suspected collision tells astronomers something about the early Kuiper belt. Haumea is a fairly big object and was likely hit by something similarly hefty. But "pretty big objects are pretty rare," Brown said, so either this was a chance strike, or there were more large objects in the early Kuiper belt object than there are at present.

Brown says astronomers have no idea what might have happened to those objects -- whether they might have broken up in collisions or disappeared in some other scenario.

Hi'iaka and Namaka aren't the only products of the collision; smaller shards also flew off the dwarf planet, settling into similar orbits around the Kuiper belt.

"They go from the size of 100 miles across for the biggest one to ice balls," Brown said.

The setup makes Haumea's name a perfect fit: Haumea was the Hawaiian goddess of childbirth, and the mother of many other Hawaiian deities (including Hi'iaka and Namaka), who were all born as chunks taken from her.

Scattered Icecubes

Brown and his colleagues have found 10 of the biggest chunks from Haumea scattered around the Kuiper belt (and are naming them after more of Haumea's children).

Others are sure to turn up, and likely have already been found, but no one knew what they actually were.

"We have to realize that things that we already know in the Kuiper belt are shards," Brown said.

Finding these bits of debris from Haumea's collision is a rare opportunity. "You can't do that anywhere else in the solar system," Brown said.

Studying the shards and their distribution will not only shed light on the collision that broke up Haumea, but could help scientists better understand other such collisions, such as the one that created the moon from the infant Earth, for which the evidence is long gone.

In those situations, "the shards all go away, Brown said, which makes Haumea "our best chance" to understand these other collisions.

These "big cubes of ice," as Brown describes them, also dispelled one notion about the nature of the Kuiper belt. Astronomers had thought that dust in the region would coat any objects and obscure their true surface.

But "these things look like beautiful ice cubes," Brown said. This finding means that when the surfaces of other Kuiper belt objects are observed, astronomers can better assume they are looking at the object's actual surface, not dust.

Asked if there were any ideas as to why the dust wasn't coating the ice shards, Brown replied, "No. None. Zero."

More Mysteries

Despite the recent insights, much remains a mystery about Haumea.

Its exact shape, for one thing, is not precisely known. Its internal structure isn't well known either. Astronomers know it has a rocky core, but whether there is a heavier iron core within that is uncertain. The timing of eclipses with Haumea's satellites could help determine this because an iron core would cause certain changes in the timing of those eclipses do its heavier pull.

Brown and his colleagues plan to observe these eclipses with ground-based telescopes over the next few years.

Observing Haumea's satellites will also help astronomers better constrain the object's mass.

One particularly exciting observation will be made with the renewed Hubble Space Telescope in a few weeks. Hubble will watch an occultation of Haumea's two satellite, an event that occurs only twice every 300 years.

The timing of the passage of one of the satellites in front of the other is only known to within about five hours. With Hubble's precise observation, that timing can be narrowed down to within a matter of seconds.

The observation will tell astronomers more precisely where the satellites are in orbit around Haumea, Brown explained.

Observations such as these just can't be done with the other Kuiper belt objects -- Haumea is a special case. "Haumea is the only one out there that we can do this with," Brown said.

Skip over this content

2009-06-22 09:37:22

GOOD READ?

92 %

8 %

59 votes

See More Related Articles and Blog Posts

(114)

Sort by:

1 - 10

<< Previous Next 10 >>

Sixeyess4dinner

10:25 PMJun 23 2009

David Allen Batchelor, of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, wrote a short (and easy to read) article 'The Science of Star Trek,' in which he discusses the history of Star Trek technology to include both the realistic and unrealistic application of real-life sciences. http://www.nasa.gov/topics/technology/features/star_trek.html

AVG RATING:

(0)

REPORT!

sign-in to rate

benne841

09:35 PMJun 23 2009

Ladydifadden 05:24 PMJun 22 2009 Lifesofine, you really need to get a grip. I met Gene Roddenberry. Star Trek was space opera--wagon train to the stars stuff. He didn't take himself seriously--you shouldn't take him seriously either. Whatever science or reality came from Star Trek only came because that show inspired young minds to create@@@@@@@ Everything on the original Star Trek has become reality except matter transporters and warp drives - and the transporters are actually in the stage of experimentation. First atoms and now whole molecules have actually been transported from one transporter chamber to another. Warp drive is now believed to be a possiblitity, the problem being the amount of energy needed to warp space. Maybe in another hundred years we will be well on our wat to The Next Generation.

AVG RATING:

(0)

REPORT!

sign-in to rate

Jackisbackprt4

09:03 PMJun 23 2009

PoliticalPost Jackisbackprt4 06:59 PMJun 22 2009 Send Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Rielly, Rush Limbaugh and all the other Obama hating fanatics there.MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMThey will be doing more spins when they come back. On serious note:"=====I am quite serious and that would be a one way trip. Any guidance system referencing a return trip would be automatically erased.

AVG RATING:

(0)

REPORT!

sign-in to rate

benne841

08:40 PMJun 23 2009

Tadow18677 06:49 PMJun 22 2009 Forget This: Look up the Dark Star Planet, coming towards the Earth in December of 2012. They won't talk about that one, cause it's going to F*** U* our planet and Destroy Civilization as we know it. Look it up on YOU tube as well.. There's a Observatory that was built specifically to watch this Dwarf like planet that was built in Iceland or the North Pole.. The U.S. Government is keeping it Hush Hush. Dooms Day is coming...Look it up 4 REAL@@@@@ Yeah right, and don't forget those lizard men from the center of the Earth taking over the world. After the Dooms Day planet passes they're going to rule over the survivors of Mankind, their first goal: ban reality shows on television.

AVG RATING:

(0)

REPORT!

sign-in to rate

benne841

08:28 PMJun 23 2009

Smilingblueyes62 05:57 PMJun 22 2009 Yeah it's neat to see,but I think our government is spending way too much money on this space exploration,what do they think is going to come out of all this,landing on the moon did nothing for us,The cost of a rocket could do alot more if used here on earth!! These astronauts risk their lives to prove what? that we can build a rocket to get there and back! And what if these planets were once like earth and were destroyed by an organism of sorts and they bring it here and it destroys our planet,I say scratch the searching,and use all that money here,to help US. If you can't see it through a telescope leave it alone!!@@@@@@@ The NASA trips to the moon were political. They were not about science, they were not about exploring the moons natural resourses, they were not about colonization. It was to show that America was more advanced than Russia.

AVG RATING:

(0)

REPORT!

sign-in to rate

Skptc101

08:18 PMJun 23 2009

Tadow18677 06:49 PM: " ......Look it up for real." Sorry chief, the Dark Star Planet will not hit the Earth in 2012. I auctioned it off on E-Bay 8 months ago to Steven Spockborg, for use as a prop in the upcoming 'Star Trek goes Jihad' movie (2012 release). The Dark Star Planet will subsequently be destroyed during filming as the 'Creationists make their Last Stand'.........

AVG RATING:

(2)

REPORT!

sign-in to rate

beautyaaa

07:58 PMJun 22 2009

wholesale sports shoes, cheap jordan shoes, nike shoes, air max shoes,gucci shoes,jerseys, wholesale jeans, t-shirts,Bikini,coach bags,sandals, ,watches,sunglasses,belts etc..Such as:$35 nike jordan ,$35 jeans,$18 bikini, t-shirts: Coogi, Evisu,Christan Audigier,Ed Hardy $27 coach,lv,gucci,juicy,handbags etc.. Pls visit --------------------netsowntown.com for more details

AVG RATING:

(1)

REPORT!

sign-in to rate

bulgeinmyplants

07:51 PMJun 22 2009

YES,....BUT IS IT AS LARGE AS URANUS ?,,,( KEEPING GRADE SCHOOL HUMOR ALIVE SINCE 1985 )

AVG RATING:

(2)

REPORT!

sign-in to rate