The Weirdest Object in the Solar System?

From: LiveScience.com, 22 June 2009 07:42 am ET

By Andrea Thompson, Senior Writer

“…the minor planet now known as the dwarf planet Haumea…shaped something "like a big squashed cigar…" said…Mike Brown of Caltech.

“…astronomers…noticed that it was getting brighter and fainter by about 25 percent every two hours…Astronomers determined…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.”

 

Haumea and her children…

From: Space.com, September 2008

By Clara Moskowitz, Staff Writer

“Brown and his team initially spotted the dwarf planet in December 2004 just after Christmas, leading them to nickname it "Santa"…

“Haumea joins Ceres, Pluto, Eris and Makemake as the fifth dwarf planet in our solar system. Pluto was re-classified from planet to dwarf planet in 2006, following the discovery of Eris.

“The new dwarf planet has the same diameter as Pluto, but is much thinner, and contains about 32 percent of Pluto's mass.

“Haumea is currently about 50 times as far from the sun as Earth is, but its orbit can swing it in as close as 35 times the sun-Earth distance. It is part of the trans-Neptunian class of cold and rocky objects in the outer solar system.

“Two small companion objects, thought to have been knocked off Haumea's body by past impacts…were…designated…Hi'iaka and Namaka, after the two children born to the goddess Haumea in Hawaiian myth. In the story, Haumea's children were created out of parts of her own body, just as the dwarf planet's two moons were apparently born out of itself.”