Two teams claim credit for the discovery of Haumea. Mike Brown of Caltech, David Rabinowitz of Yale University, and Chad Trujillo of Gemini Observatory first identified it on images taken on the 6th of May 2004. José Luis Ortiz Moreno and his team at the Sierra Nevada Observatory in Spain filed their discovery report to the Minor Planet Center on the 27th of July 2005, using precovery images from 2003. The IAU's 2008 announcement listed the Sierra Nevada Observatory as the discovery location but used the name proposed by the Caltech team.
Why is Haumea named after a Hawaiian goddess?
Haumea was named after the Hawaiian goddess of childbirth and fertility because IAU guidelines called for classical Kuiper belt objects to carry names from mythology associated with creation. The Caltech team chose Hawaiian mythology to honor the location of the satellite discoveries, made at observatories on Mauna Kea. The name was also fitting because Haumea in mythology has many children who sprang from her body, mirroring the family of icy fragments believed to have broken off Haumea in an ancient collision.
Does Haumea have a ring system?
Haumea has a ring discovered through a stellar occultation observed on the 21st of January 2017 and announced in Nature in October 2017. It is the first ring system found around any trans-Neptunian object and the first around a dwarf planet. The ring sits at a radius of about 2,287 km, with a width of roughly 70 km and an opacity of 0.5.
How fast does Haumea rotate and why is that significant?
Haumea completes one rotation every 3.9 hours, faster than any other known body in the Solar System that has settled into equilibrium. No other known body larger than 100 km in diameter spins as fast. This rapid rotation has distorted Haumea into a triaxial ellipsoid, with its longest axis roughly twice the length of its shortest, rather than the oblate spheroid shape seen in most rotating worlds.
What are Haumea's two moons called and when were they discovered?
Haumea's two moons are Hiiaka and Namaka, both discovered in 2005 by Darin Ragozzine and Michael Brown using the W. M. Keck Observatory. Hiiaka, the larger outer moon at roughly 310 km in diameter, was found on the 26th of January 2005. Namaka, the smaller inner moon, was discovered on the 30th of June 2005 and orbits Haumea every 18 days in a highly elliptical path.
What is the Haumea collisional family?
The Haumea collisional family is a group of trans-Neptunian objects sharing similar physical and orbital characteristics, thought to have formed when a larger body was shattered by an ancient impact. It is the first collisional family identified among trans-Neptunian objects and includes Haumea, its two moons, and several other bodies ranging from roughly 174 to 364 km in size. The collision is estimated to have occurred at least a billion years ago, and the group likely originated in the scattered disc, where the probability of such an impact was far higher than in today's sparse Kuiper belt.