kosmos: Quaoar

Evidence: 100 • authority: 72

Quaoar (minor-planet number 50000) is a ringed dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a band of icy planetesimals beyond Neptune. It has a slightly ellipsoidal shape with an average diameter of 1,100 km (680 mi), about half the size of the dwarf planet Pluto. The object was discovered by American astronomers Chad Trujillo and Michael Brown at Palomar Observatory on 4 June 2002. Quaoar has a reddish surface made of crystalline water ice, tholins, and traces of frozen methane. Quaoar has two thin rings orbiting outside its Roche limit, which defies theoretical expectations that rings outside the Roche limit should be unstable. Quaoar has one moon named Weywot and a potential second moon that has no…

Evidence: 42 • authority: 72

Gonggong (minor-planet number 225088) is a dwarf planet and a member of the scattered disc beyond Neptune. It has a highly eccentric and inclined orbit during which it ranges from 33–101 astronomical units (4.9–15.1 billion kilometers; 3.1–9.4 billion miles) from the Sun. As of 2026, its distance from the Sun is 89.7 AU (13.42×10^9 km; 8.34×10^9 mi), and it is the sixth-farthest known Solar System object. According to the Deep Ecliptic Survey, Gonggong is in a 3:10 orbital resonance with Neptune, in which it completes three orbits around the Sun for every ten orbits completed by Neptune. Gonggong was discovered in July 2007 by American astronomers Megan Schwamb, Michael Brown, and David Rab…

Evidence: 40 • authority: 72

The number of dwarf planets in the Solar System is unknown. Estimates have run as high as 200 in the Kuiper belt and over 10,000 in the region beyond. However, consideration of the surprisingly low densities and albedos of many large trans-Neptunian objects, as well as spectroscopic analysis of their surfaces, suggests that the number of dwarf planets may be much lower, perhaps only nine among bodies known so far. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) defines dwarf planets as being in hydrostatic equilibrium, and notes six bodies in particular: Ceres in the inner Solar System and five in the trans-Neptunian region: Pluto, Eris, Haumea, Makemake, and Quaoar. Only Pluto and Ceres have be…

Evidence: 40 • authority: 72

A dwarf planet is a small planetary-mass object that is in direct orbit around the Sun, massive enough to be gravitationally rounded, but insufficient to achieve orbital dominance like the eight classical planets of the Solar System. The prototypical dwarf planet is Pluto, which for decades was regarded as a planet before the "dwarf" concept was adopted in 2006. Many planetary geologists consider dwarf planets and planetary-mass moons to be planets, but since 2006 the IAU and many astronomers have excluded them from the roster of planets. Dwarf planets are capable of being geologically active, an expectation that was borne out in 2015 by the Dawn mission to Ceres and the New Horizons missio…

Evidence: 40 • authority: 72

Weywot (formal designation (50000) Quaoar I) is the only confirmed moon of the trans-Neptunian dwarf planet Quaoar. It was discovered by Michael Brown and Terry-Ann Suer using images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope on 14 February 2006. It is named after the Tongva sky god and son of Quaoar. Weywot is an elongated body with an average diameter of 146 km (91 mi). It has an extremely dark, water ice-rich surface with an albedo of about 0.04, making it one of the darkest known moons beyond Neptune. Weywot follows a nearly circular orbit around Quaoar, revolving every 12.4 days at an average distance of 13,300 km (8,300 mi). It is thought to play a role in maintaining Quaoar's outer ring by…

Evidence: 25 • authority: 72

Evidence: 24 • authority: 80

Determination of Orbital Time Period of Revolution Dwarf Planets Around the Sun using Kepler’s Third Law of Planetary Motion and Python - Pluto, Eris, Haumea, Makemake, Gonggong, Quaoar, Sedna, Orcus and Salacia

Evidence: 24 • authority: 88

The Retrograde Ring Of Dwarf Planet Quaoar. The stability scenario about rings around celestial minor bodies and exoplanets has changed significantly in the past decade. There is still no consensus on how these ring systems form, evolve, and remain stable.So far, four ring systems have been discovered around small Solar System bodies by observing stellar occultations. These include the centaurs Chariklo (Braga-Ribas et al., 2014) and possibly Chiron (Ortiz et al., 2015), and the trans-Neptunian dwarf planets Haumea (Ortiz et al., 2017) and Quaoar (Morgado et al., 2023; Pereira et al., 2023).The dwarf planet Quaoar was the first small celestial body to have an observed ring outside its Roche…