Pull your telescope out of the closet, there’s a new dwarf
planet in the skies. And it’s been given a Hawaiian name, Haumea, after the Hawaiian
goddess of fertility.
The International Astronomical Union just made it official. Discovered
in 2005, the astrological entity was classified as a dwarf planet only days
ago.
Just what is a dwarf planet? Basically, it is a celestial
body that orbits around the Sun. It has
sufficient mass that its gravity makes it rounded, but it is not
gravitationally dominant in its own region of outer space.
Haumea is our solar system's fifth dwarf planet (the others
are Ceres, Eris, Makemake and recently
demoted Pluto is another). Haumea is roughly
one-third the mass of Pluto.
The name was proposed by the researchers who discovered it —Mike Brown of CalTech, David Rabinowitz
of Yale, and Chad Trujillo of Gemini Observatory in Hawaii).
Haumea’s two moons were also given Hawaiian names—Hi‘iaka
and Namaka—after two of Haumea’s daughters.
According to myth, Haumea’s children were created from
different parts of her body. Similarly, the moons of the dwarf planet were
believed to have been broken off its body by an ancient collision.
Coincidentally, the goddess Haumea was a personification of
stone, and her namesake planet is believed to be made almost entirely of rock.
Haumea also has the distinction of being one of the few
non-spherical planets in our solar system, resembling a football or perhaps a
plump cigar. Astronomers think its shape comes from its rapid rotation, possibly
the result of a collision with another object billions of years ago.
Artist conceptualization of dwarf planet Haumea (top): Wikipedia/Commons; painting of goddess Haumea by isa Maria
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