Kuiper belt object
Quaoar
A large Kuiper belt world with a moon, Weywot, and rings orbiting surprisingly far out, where theory said rings should not survive.
- Distance from Earth today
- 6.44 billion km43.06 AU · light: 5 h 58 min
- Distance from the Sun today
- 6.37 billion km42.60 AU
- As of
- 2 November 2026position from NASA/JPL orbital elements
Where it is today
Top view of the plane of Earth’s orbit, compressed distance scale. Open on the big map with the time slider →
Facts
- Rotation period
- 8.8 h
- Semi-major axis
- 43.17 AU (6.46 billion km)
- Perihelion
- 41.66 AU
- Aphelion
- 44.68 AU
- Orbital period
- 283.6 years
- Orbital eccentricity
- 0.035
- Orbital inclination
- 8.0°
- Perihelion passage
- 22 October 2078
- Minimum orbit distance from Earth’s orbit (MOID)
- 40.63 AU (6.08 billion km)
Source of the figures: JPL Small-Body Database (public domain).
Discovery: 2002 – Chad Trujillo, Michael E. Brown
Description
Quaoar is one of the larger objects in the Kuiper belt, discovered in 2002 by Chad Trujillo and Michael Brown at Palomar Observatory. Its surface shows signs of crystalline water ice and frozen methane, and it has a small moon called Weywot. Observations of stars passing behind it revealed rings orbiting much farther from Quaoar than the distance at which material is normally expected to clump together into a moon, challenging established ideas about how rings form and persist. Quaoar is named after the creator deity of the Tongva people of the Los Angeles area.