Dwarf planet Haumea, out in the Kuiper Belt past Pluto and Eris, just got its big break. The formerly little-known object hit the big time Wednesday at the European Planetary Science Congress when Pedro Lacerda announced a dark red spot on its surface.
And, not to copycat Jupiter and Neptune, Haumea’s big spot (pictured in the computer model still at right) probably isn’t a giant storm. While the extreme distance between the object and us makes any conclusions uncertain, the current interpretations make the spot out to be an area richer in minerals and organic compounds or one with a higher fraction of crystalline ice. A massive impact may have caused it, but that’s only speculation.
Scientists discovered the spot by investigating changes in the object’s brightness as it rotated. And with Haumea’s ridiculously fast rotation time, where one haumean day lasts less than 4 Earth hours, that change in brightness was all the more noticeable. In fact, Haumea’s rapid rotation deforms the dwarf planet into an ovaloid, and not spherical, shape. Some theories pin the cause of this, the solar system’s fastest rotation, on a massive impact, but again, it’s just a guess.
It’s astounding to me how much we can figure out about something so far away that it’s essentially a dim point of light in the sky. But because we know so much about light and how it interacts with everything else, even that dim point can tell us a lot. And with plans to study Haumea next year with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, the dwarf planet could be in front of the spotlight for a long time.
So what do you think? Impressed by the reach of our knowledge? Has Haumea always been a big (Hollywood-type) star for you? Or are you unimpressed with what’s just an ice-covered, roughly football-shaped rock in the distance?
Photo credit: P Lacerda