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Haumea

Adapted from Wikipedia · Explorer experience

An artist's illustration showing the rapid rotation of the dwarf planet Haumea in space.

Meet Haumea

Haumea is a special kind of world called a dwarf planet. It is very far away from us, floating in the cold space beyond the planet Neptune. Haumea is not as big as Pluto, but it is still one of the larger objects out there.

A Quick Spiner

Haumea spins around very fast—faster than any other big object in our Solar System! It completes a full spin in just under 4 hours. Because it spins so quickly, Haumea is not a perfect ball. It is stretched out into a long, odd shape, like a squashed football.

A Ring Around It

In 2017, scientists made an exciting discovery: Haumea has a thin ring of tiny particles swirling around it. This was the first time a ring had ever been found around a dwarf planet! The ring is quite wide but very thin, like a flat, round disc.

Little Moons

Haumea has two small moons that orbit around it. Their names are Hiʻiaka and Namaka. Hiʻiaka is the bigger of the two and shines brightly because it is covered in icy water. Namaka is smaller and moves faster in its orbit around Haumea.

A Long Way to Travel

Haumea takes a very long time—284 Earth years—to travel once around the Sun. Sometimes it is very far from the Sun, and sometimes it is a little closer. It follows a path that is tilted compared to the other planets, making its journey through space quite unique.

Images

Diagram showing the orbits of the celestial objects Quaoar, Haumea, and Makemake as seen from space on January 1, 2018.
A scientific diagram showing the changing orbit pattern of the dwarf planet Haumea over millions of years.
Animation showing the rotation of the dwarf planet Haumea and its surrounding ring system.
Animation showing the orbits of Haumea's moons, Hi'iaka and Namaka, as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope.
A visual guide to the major objects in our Solar System, showing the relative sizes of planets and the Sun.
A colorful educational montage showing the planets of our solar system, including Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, as captured by NASA spacecraft.
A stunning view of Earth from space, showing Africa, Antarctica, and the Arabian Peninsula as seen by the Apollo 17 crew.
A colorful image of Ceres, a dwarf planet, showing bright craters like Haulani and Oxo on its surface.
A colorful image of the planet Pluto showing its icy surface and famous 'heart' region, taken by the New Horizons spacecraft.
An image of the dwarf planet Haumea taken by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft from far away in space.

Related articles

Haumea (mythology)
Dwarf planet
Neptune
Pluto
Solar System
Hiʻiaka (moon)

This article is a child-friendly adaptation of the Wikipedia article on Haumea, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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