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Quaoar (minor-planet designation: 50000 Quaoar) is a ringed dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a region of icy planetesimals beyond Neptune.It has an elongated ellipsoidal shape with an average diameter of 1,090 km (680 mi), about half the size of the dwarf planet Pluto.
The name was proposed by the Caltech team on September 6, 2006, and it was assigned on September 13, 2006, [35] following an unusually long period in which the object was known by the provisional designation 2003 UB 313, which was granted automatically by the IAU under their naming protocols for minor planets. The name Eris has two competing ...
The number of dwarf planets in the Solar System is unknown. Estimates have run as high as 200 in the Kuiper belt [1] and over 10,000 in the region beyond. [2] However, consideration of the surprisingly low densities of many large trans-Neptunian objects, as well as spectroscopic analysis of their surfaces, suggests that the number of dwarf planets may be much lower, perhaps only nine among ...
Makemake [e] (minor-planet designation: 136472 Makemake) is a dwarf planet and the largest of what is known as the classical population of Kuiper belt objects, [b] with a diameter approximately that of Saturn's moon Iapetus, or 60% that of Pluto. [24] [25] It has one known satellite. [26]
Indeed, the draft of Resolution 5A had called these median bodies planetoids, [32] [33] but the plenary session voted unanimously to change the name to dwarf planet. [2] The second resolution, 5B, defined dwarf planets as a subtype of planet, as Stern had originally intended, distinguished from the other eight that were to be called "classical ...
Pluto, a dwarf planet, has five moons. Its largest moon Charon, named after the ferryman who took souls across the River Styx, is more than half as large as Pluto itself, and large enough to orbit a point outside Pluto's surface. In effect, each orbits the other, forming a binary system informally referred to as a double-dwarf-planet.
By RYAN GORMAN Scientists may have found Planet X -- the long-rumored object believed to be larger than Earth and further from the sun than Pluto. Planet X and another object dubbed "Planet Y ...
Pluto was designated by P prior to its recategorization as a dwarf planet. When the object is found around a minor planet, the identifier used is the latter's number in parentheses. Thus, Dactyl, the moon of 243 Ida, was at first designated "S/1993 (243) 1". Once confirmed and named, it became (243) Ida I Dactyl.