Kuiper belt dwarf planet
Haumea
A fast-spinning, egg-shaped dwarf planet beyond Neptune, with a ring and two small moons, Hiʻiaka and Namaka.
- Distance from Earth today
- 7.58 billion km50.70 AU · light: 7 h 2 min
- Distance from the Sun today
- 7.45 billion km49.83 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
- 3.9 h
- Semi-major axis
- 43.09 AU (6.45 billion km)
- Perihelion
- 34.75 AU
- Aphelion
- 51.44 AU
- Orbital period
- 282.9 years
- Orbital eccentricity
- 0.194
- Orbital inclination
- 28.2°
Source of the figures: JPL Small-Body Database (public domain).
Discovery: 2003 – José Luis Ortiz, Pablo Santos-Sanz, Francisco J. Aceituno (credit disputed with Michael Brown's team)
Description
Haumea is one of the strangest dwarf planets: it rotates so quickly – once in under four hours – that it has been stretched into an elongated, egg-like shape. Its surface is coated with bright crystalline water ice, and in 2017 a stellar occultation revealed a narrow ring around it. Haumea has two moons and a group of icy objects on similar orbits, all thought to be fragments from an ancient collision. Its discovery was claimed by two teams, one led by José Luis Ortiz in Spain and one by Michael Brown in the United States; the name honours the Hawaiian goddess of fertility and childbirth.