Quaoar
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Quaoar
Quaoar (50000 Quaoar), provisional designation , is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a region of icy planetesimals beyond Neptune. A non-resonant object (cubewano), it measures approximately in diameter, about half the diameter of Pluto. The object was discovered by American astronomers Chad Trujillo and Michael Brown at the Palomar Observatory on 4 June 2002. Signs of water ice on the surface of Quaoar have been found, which suggests that cryovolcanism may be occurring on Quaoar. A small amount of methane is present on its surface, which can only be retained by the largest Kuiper belt objects. In February 2007, Weywot, a synchronous moon in orbit around Quaoar, was discovered by Brown. Weywot is measured to be across. Both objects were named after mythological figures from the Native American Tongva people in Southern California. Quaoar is the Tongva creator deity and Weywot is his son. History Discovery Quaoar was discovered on 4 June 2002 by American astronomer ...
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Quaoar Symbol (bold)
Quaoar (50000 Quaoar), provisional designation , is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a region of icy planetesimals beyond Neptune. A non-resonant object (cubewano), it measures approximately in diameter, about half the diameter of Pluto. The object was discovered by American astronomers Chad Trujillo and Michael Brown at the Palomar Observatory on 4 June 2002. Signs of water ice on the surface of Quaoar have been found, which suggests that cryovolcanism may be occurring on Quaoar. A small amount of methane is present on its surface, which can only be retained by the largest Kuiper belt objects. In February 2007, Weywot, a synchronous moon in orbit around Quaoar, was discovered by Brown. Weywot is measured to be across. Both objects were named after mythological figures from the Native American Tongva people in Southern California. Quaoar is the Tongva creator deity and Weywot is his son. History Discovery Quaoar was discovered on 4 June 2002 by American astronomers ...
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Quaoar (mythology)
Quaoar (50000 Quaoar), provisional designation , is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a region of icy planetesimals beyond Neptune. A non-resonant object (cubewano), it measures approximately in diameter, about half the diameter of Pluto. The object was discovered by American astronomers Chad Trujillo and Michael Brown at the Palomar Observatory on 4 June 2002. Signs of water ice on the surface of Quaoar have been found, which suggests that cryovolcanism may be occurring on Quaoar. A small amount of methane is present on its surface, which can only be retained by the largest Kuiper belt objects. In February 2007, Weywot, a synchronous moon in orbit around Quaoar, was discovered by Brown. Weywot is measured to be across. Both objects were named after mythological figures from the Native American Tongva people in Southern California. Quaoar is the Tongva creator deity and Weywot is his son. History Discovery Quaoar was discovered on 4 June 2002 by American astronomers ...
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Quaoar Discovery Animation
Quaoar (50000 Quaoar), provisional designation , is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a region of icy planetesimals beyond Neptune. A non-resonant object (cubewano), it measures approximately in diameter, about half the diameter of Pluto. The object was discovered by American astronomers Chad Trujillo and Michael Brown at the Palomar Observatory on 4 June 2002. Signs of water ice on the surface of Quaoar have been found, which suggests that cryovolcanism may be occurring on Quaoar. A small amount of methane is present on its surface, which can only be retained by the largest Kuiper belt objects. In February 2007, Weywot, a synchronous moon in orbit around Quaoar, was discovered by Brown. Weywot is measured to be across. Both objects were named after mythological figures from the Native American Tongva people in Southern California. Quaoar is the Tongva creator deity and Weywot is his son. History Discovery Quaoar was discovered on 4 June 2002 by American astronomers ...
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Weywot
Weywot, officially (50000) Quaoar I Weywot, is the only known moon of the trans-Neptunian planetoid 50000 Quaoar. Discovered by Michael Brown and T.A. Suer using images acquired by the Hubble Space Telescope on 14 February 2006, its existence was announced in an IAU Circular notice published on 22 February 2007. Weywot has an estimated diameter of (approximately 15% of its primary). The satellite was found at 0.35 arcseconds from Quaoar with an apparent magnitude difference of 5.6. Orbit Two possible orbits for Weywot have been determined from the observations: the first is a prograde orbit with an orbital inclination of 14 degrees, the second a retrograde orbit with an orbital inclination of 30 degrees (150 degrees); the other parameters are very similar between the two orbits. Weywot orbits at a distance of from Quaoar and has an orbital eccentricity of about 0.14. It completes one orbit in about 12.5 days. Physical characteristics Weywot is calculated to be around in dia ...
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Kuiper Belt
The Kuiper belt () is a circumstellar disc in the outer Solar System, extending from the orbit of Neptune at 30 astronomical units (AU) to approximately 50 AU from the Sun. It is similar to the asteroid belt, but is far larger—20 times as wide and 20–200 times as massive. Like the asteroid belt, it consists mainly of small bodies or remnants from when the Solar System formed. While many asteroids are composed primarily of rock and metal, most Kuiper belt objects are composed largely of frozen volatiles (termed "ices"), such as methane, ammonia, and water. The Kuiper belt is home to most of the objects that astronomers generally accept as dwarf planets: Orcus, Pluto, Haumea, Quaoar, and Makemake. Some of the Solar System's moons, such as Neptune's Triton and Saturn's Phoebe, may have originated in the region. The Kuiper belt was named after Dutch astronomer Gerard Kuiper, although he did not predict its existence. In 1992, minor planet (15760) Albion was ...
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List Of Possible Dwarf Planets
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 of many large trans-Neptunian objects 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 five bodies in particular: in the inner Solar System and four in the trans-Neptunian region: , , , and . Only Pluto and Ceres have been confirmed to be in hydrostatic equilibrium, due to the results of the '' New Horizons'' and ''Dawn'' missions. Eris is generally assumed to be a dwarf planet because it is similar in size to Pluto and even more massive. Haumea and Makemake were accepted as dwarf planets by the IAU for naming purposes and will keep their names if it turns out they are not dwarf planets. Smaller trans-Neptun ...
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Tongva People
The Tongva ( ) are an Indigenous peoples of California, Indigenous people of California from the Los Angeles Basin and the Channel Islands of California, Southern Channel Islands, an area covering approximately . Some descendants of the people prefer Kizh as an Endonym and exonym, endonym that, they argue, is more historically accurate. In the precolonial era, the people lived in as many as 100 villages and primarily identified by their village rather than by a pan-tribal name. During colonization, the Spanish referred to these people as Gabrieleño and Fernandeño, names derived from the Spanish missions in California, Spanish missions built on their land: Mission San Gabriel Arcángel and Mission San Fernando Rey de España. ''Tongva'' is the most widely circulated endonym among the people, used by Narcisa Higuera in 1905 to refer to inhabitants in the vicinity of Mission San Gabriel. Along with the neighboring Chumash people, Chumash, the Tongva were the most influential peopl ...
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Weywot (mythology)
The Tongva ( ) are an Indigenous people of California from the Los Angeles Basin and the Southern Channel Islands, an area covering approximately . Some descendants of the people prefer Kizh as an endonym that, they argue, is more historically accurate. In the precolonial era, the people lived in as many as 100 villages and primarily identified by their village rather than by a pan-tribal name. During colonization, the Spanish referred to these people as Gabrieleño and Fernandeño, names derived from the Spanish missions built on their land: Mission San Gabriel Arcángel and Mission San Fernando Rey de España. ''Tongva'' is the most widely circulated endonym among the people, used by Narcisa Higuera in 1905 to refer to inhabitants in the vicinity of Mission San Gabriel. Along with the neighboring Chumash, the Tongva were the most influential people at the time of European encounter. They had developed an extensive trade network through ''te'aats'' (plank-built boats). Their vi ...
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Trans-Neptunian Object
A trans-Neptunian object (TNO), also written transneptunian object, is any minor planet in the Solar System that orbits the Sun at a greater average distance than Neptune, which has a semi-major axis of 30.1 astronomical units (au). Typically, TNOs are further divided into the classical and resonant objects of the Kuiper belt, the scattered disc and detached objects with the sednoids being the most distant ones. As of October 2020, the catalog of minor planets contains 678 numbered and more than 2,000 unnumbered TNOs. The first trans-Neptunian object to be discovered was Pluto in 1930. It took until 1992 to discover a second trans-Neptunian object orbiting the Sun directly, 15760 Albion. The most massive TNO known is Eris, followed by Pluto, , , and . More than 80 satellites have been discovered in orbit of trans-Neptunian objects. TNOs vary in color and are either grey-blue (BB) or very red (RR). They are thought to be composed of mixtures of rock, amorphous carbon and ...
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Classical Kuiper Belt Object
A classical Kuiper belt object, also called a cubewano ( "QB1-o"), is a low-eccentricity Kuiper belt object (KBO) that orbits beyond Neptune and is not controlled by an orbital resonance with Neptune. Cubewanos have orbits with semi-major axes in the 40–50  AU range and, unlike Pluto, do not cross Neptune's orbit. That is, they have low-eccentricity and sometimes low-inclination orbits like the classical planets. The name "cubewano" derives from the first trans-Neptunian object (TNO) found after Pluto and Charon: 15760 Albion, which until January 2018 had only the provisional designation (15760) 1992 QB1. Similar objects found later were often called "QB1-o's", or "cubewanos", after this object, though the term "classical" is much more frequently used in the scientific literature. Objects identified as cubewanos include: * 15760 Albion (aka 1992 QB1 and gave rise to term 'Cubewano') * 136472 Makemake, the largest known cubewano and a dwarf planet * 50000 Quaoar an ...
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Cryovolcanism
A cryovolcano (sometimes informally called an ice volcano) is a type of volcano that erupts volatiles such as water, ammonia or methane into an extremely cold environment that is at or below their freezing point. The process of formation is known as cryovolcanism. Collectively referred to as cryomagma, cryolava or ice-volcanic melt, these substances are usually liquids and can form plumes, but can also be in vapour form. After the eruption, cryomagma is expected to condense to a solid form when exposed to the very low surrounding temperature. Cryovolcanoes may potentially form on icy moons and other objects with abundant water past the Solar System's snow line (such as Pluto). A number of features have been identified as possible cryovolcanoes on Pluto, Titan and Ceres, and a subset of domes on Europa may have cryovolcanic origins. In addition, although they are not known to form volcanoes, ice geysers have been observed on Enceladus and potentially Triton. One potential energ ...
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Chad Trujillo
Chadwick A. Trujillo (born November 22, 1973) is an American astronomer, discoverer of minor planets and the co-discoverer of Eris, the most massive dwarf planet known in the Solar System. Trujillo works with computer software and has examined the orbits of the numerous trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), which is the outer area of the Solar System that he specialized in. In late August 2005, it was announced that Trujillo, along with Michael Brown and David Rabinowitz, had discovered Eris in 2003. As a result of the discovery of the satellite Dysnomia, Eris was the first TNO known to be more massive than Pluto. Career Trujillo attended Oak Park and River Forest High School in Oak Park, Illinois. He received his B.Sc. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1995, and was a member of the Xi chapter of Tau Epsilon Phi, and received his Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Hawaii in 2000. Between 2000 and 2003 Trujillo was a postdoctoral scholar at Cal ...
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