Curated playlist
Objects observed by stellar occultation
- HaumeaHaumea, a dwarf planet, was found to have a ring in 2017. It was the first ring found around a dwarf planet.
- Hiʻiaka (moon)Hiʻiaka, a moon of the dwarf planet Haumea, briefly went by the name Rudolph.
- Vanth (moon)Vanth, a moon of the dwarf planet Orcus, is heavy enough to pull Orcus off-center. They circle a shared point.
- PlutoIn 2006, astronomers voted to change the meaning of planet, and Pluto became a dwarf planet.
- UranusUranus is tipped on its side, so each pole gets roughly 42 years of sunlight, then 42 of darkness.
- MakemakeThe dwarf planet Makemake is brighter than Pluto. Its surface reflects 82 percent of light, thanks to fresh methane ice.
- Eris (dwarf planet)Eris was photographed in 1954 and nobody noticed. The dwarf planet's steep orbit kept it out of sky surveys.
- Triton (moon)Neptune's moon Triton circles its planet backwards. No other large moon in the Solar System does this.
- 2 PallasCharles Messier recorded the asteroid 2 Pallas in 1779 and mistook it for a star.
- Ceres (dwarf planet)On January 1, 1801, a priest named Giuseppe Piazzi mistook Ceres for a comet. He was an astronomer in Sicily.
- Charon (moon)In 1978, astronomer James Christy noticed Pluto looked stretched, and found its moon Charon.
- 10199 CharikloIn 2013, astronomers watching a star dim found rings around the small centaur Chariklo.
- 541132 LeleākūhonuaA distant object nicknamed "The Goblin" takes about 55,000 years to orbit the Sun.