# Haumea
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**Microsim — three.js (Wikitube framework):** *Haumea in the Solar System explorer*
<div class="wt-sim" data-src="https://wikitube-3d-microsims.netlify.app/solar/Solar_System.html?obj=Haumea&embed=1" data-title="Haumea in the Solar System explorer"></div>
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*Try: drag the year slider to 1992 to put Haumea at the far end of its orbit, just over 51 AU from the Sun; drag to an edge-on view and see how steeply its 28° orbit climbs out of the plane the planets share; then set the speed to 100 years/s and watch it complete a lap in under three seconds while Neptune goes round not quite twice.*
**Haumea** (minor-planet number 136108) is a [[Dwarf_planet|dwarf planet]] beyond the orbit of [[Neptune]], an elongated, fast-spinning body of rock and ice that is among the largest known [[Trans-Neptunian_object|trans-Neptunian objects]].[^iau0807][^ortiz2017] It turns once every 3.9 hours, the fastest spin of any known body of its size, and the spin has stretched it into an ellipsoid whose longest axis is roughly twice its shortest.[^rabinowitz2006][^dunham2019] Its mass, 4.0 × 10²¹ kg, is about a third of [[Pluto]]'s (derived).[^ragozzine2009][^fs-pluto] A stellar occultation in 2017 revealed a ring, the first found around a trans-Neptunian object.[^ortiz2017]
Haumea was found in images taken in 2003 and 2004 by two teams, one led by Michael Brown at Caltech and one led by José Luis Ortiz in Spain, and its discovery credit remains disputed.[^brown-trail][^hecht2005] It was named in 2008 after the Hawaiian goddess of childbirth and fertility.[^iau0807] Its bright surface of crystalline [[Water|water]] ice, its fast spin and its two moons, Hiʻiaka and Namaka, are thought to be consequences of an ancient giant collision that also produced a family of icy fragments sharing its orbit.[^brown2007][^trujillo2007]
The explorer at the top of this page is locked on Haumea: it draws the orbit from JPL's Small-Body Database, with a semi-major axis of 43.1 [[Astronomical_unit|AU]] and an inclination of 28°, and marks the body as a point; the elongated shape, the ring and the moons are not modelled at this scale.[^sbdb]
## History
### Discovery
Two teams claim the discovery. Michael Brown of Caltech, David Rabinowitz of Yale and Chad Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory identified the object on 28 December 2004 in images they had taken on 6 May 2004, and on 20 July 2005 posted an online abstract of a talk intended to announce it at a conference that September.[^brown-trail] Around the same time, José Luis Ortiz and colleagues at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía found the object on images taken at Sierra Nevada Observatory on 7–10 March 2003, and reported it to the Minor Planet Center on the night of 27 July 2005.[^santos2008]
Brown at first accepted that the Spanish group had found it independently. He changed his view on learning that computers at the Spanish institute had accessed his team's online telescope logs, which contained enough positional information to locate the object in older images, the day before the Spanish report and again before they scheduled confirming observations. Ortiz acknowledged accessing the logs but said he had only been checking whether the object was already known, and denied wrongdoing.[^hecht2005]
The IAU's rule is that credit goes to the first report to the Minor Planet Center with enough positions for a usable orbit, and that the discoverer normally proposes the name. When the IAU announced the name in September 2008 it listed the discovery site as Sierra Nevada Observatory but named no discoverer, and it adopted the name proposed by the Caltech team rather than the Spanish proposal, Ataecina, an Iberian goddess of spring.[^iau0807][^courtland2008][^santos2008]
### Name and symbol
Before it had a formal name the Caltech team called the object "Santa", since they had found it just after Christmas.[^astrobio2005] The Spanish report gave it the provisional designation 2003 EL61, based on the date of the earliest image, and in September 2006 it received the number 136108.[^mpc]
At the time, IAU guidelines assigned creation deities to classical [[Kuiper_belt|Kuiper belt]] objects, and in September 2006 the Caltech team submitted names from Hawaiian mythology for the dwarf planet and its moons, honouring the island where the moons were found with the Keck and Gemini telescopes on Mauna Kea.[^iau0807][^brown-haumea] Haumea is the patron goddess of the island of Hawaiʻi and a goddess of fertility and childbirth, whose many children sprang from different parts of her body, an echo of the fragments thought to have been broken off Haumea in a collision; the two moons are named after two of her daughters, Hiʻiaka and Nāmaka.[^iau0807][^craig2004] The Spanish proposal was unsuitable for a second reason: underworld deities are reserved for [[Plutino|plutinos]] in Neptune's 2:3 resonance, and Haumea is not one.[^wgsbn2025]
A symbol for Haumea, designed by the software engineer Denis Moskowitz by combining Hawaiian petroglyphs for "woman" and "childbirth", was added to Unicode in 2022; it is used mainly by astrologers.[^unicode2022]
## Orbit
Haumea orbits the [[Sun]] every 284 years or so ([[Kepler's_laws_of_planetary_motion|Kepler's third law]] gives about 283 years from its 43.1 AU semi-major axis, derived), between about 34.7 AU at perihelion and 51.4 AU at aphelion, on an orbit inclined 28° to the [[Ecliptic|ecliptic]].[^sbdb][^nasa-haumea] It passed aphelion in early 1992, is still more than 50 AU from the Sun, and will reach perihelion in 2133.[^astdys][^horizons2133] At an apparent magnitude of 17.3 only [[Pluto]] and [[Makemake]] outshine it among Kuiper belt objects, and it is within reach of a large amateur telescope.[^astdys][^rabinowitz2006]
The high inclination explains why so bright an object was found so late. Most early searches for distant bodies covered only the strip of sky near the ecliptic, where the planets and most small bodies lie; only once that strip had been well explored did wide surveys turn to higher latitudes, where Haumea was then far from the ecliptic.[^trujillo2003][^brown2004]
The orbit is not permanently stable. In simulations of the 34 largest trans-Neptunian objects over the next billion years, Muñoz-Gutiérrez and colleagues found Haumea to be the most likely of them to be removed from its present orbit, either to interstellar space or into the inner Solar System.[^munoz2021]
The explorer draws the present osculating orbit from JPL elements; its tilt and eccentricity are real, but the body's size is enlarged for visibility.[^sbdb]
### Possible resonance with Neptune
Among the bodies of its collisional family, Haumea stands out for a somewhat more eccentric orbit. Brown and colleagues attributed this to a weak 7:12 mean-motion [[Resonance|resonance]] with [[Neptune]], in which Haumea completes seven orbits while Neptune completes twelve; over about a billion years, such a resonance can exchange inclination for eccentricity through the Kozai mechanism.[^brown2007][^nesvorny2001] The resonance is intermittent. The orientation of Haumea's orbit, traced by its ascending node, turns full circle in about 4.6 million years; twice in each such turn the resonance is lost, about every 2.3 million years, returning roughly a hundred thousand years later; for that reason Marc Buie classes the orbit as non-resonant.[^buie2008]
## Rotation
Haumea's brightness rises and falls by a large amount every 1.96 hours (derived), half of its 3.9154-hour rotation period, because the elongated body presents alternately its broad side and its narrow end to [[Earth]].[^rabinowitz2006][^sbdb] In 2006 this was the fastest rotation known for any body larger than 100 km.[^rabinowitz2006] A self-gravitating fluid body spinning slowly settles into a flattened spheroid, but beyond a critical spin rate it takes the shape of a triaxial ellipsoid with three unequal axes, known as a Jacobi ellipsoid, as a result of the balance between [[Gravity|gravity]] and rotation; spun faster still, it would pinch into a dumbbell and split.[^iau0807][^rabinowitz2006] Brown and colleagues attributed the spin to the same collision that produced the moons and the family.[^brown2007]
Haumea's equator is seen nearly edge-on from Earth at present. Its outer moon Hiʻiaka and its ring orbit close to, but not exactly in, the equatorial plane: Kondratyev and Kornoukhov, analysing the 2017 occultation, found the ring inclined about 3.2° and Hiʻiaka's orbit about 2.0° to the equator.[^ragozzine2009][^ortiz2017][^kondratyev2018]
## Physical characteristics
### Size, shape, and composition
The size of a distant body is usually estimated from its brightness and an assumed reflectivity. Haumea's rapid spin makes this harder, because its outline changes by a large factor as it turns. Rabinowitz and colleagues modelled its light curve in 2006 as that of a Jacobi ellipsoid of about 2,000 × 1,500 × 1,000 km with an albedo of about 0.7; since an icy, low-density body at that spin would stretch more than the light curve allows, they inferred a density of 2.6–3.3 g/cm³, close to that of rock.[^rabinowitz2006] Thermal measurements from space gave smaller equivalent diameters: about 1,150 km from Spitzer, about 1,300 km from Herschel in 2010 and about 1,240 km from Herschel in 2013.[^stansberry2008][^lellouch2010][^fornasier2013]
The orbits of the two moons give the mass through [[Kepler's_laws_of_planetary_motion|Kepler's third law]]: (4.006 ± 0.040) × 10²¹ kg, about 5.5 percent of the [[Moon]]'s mass and 1/1,500 of [[Earth]]'s (derived).[^ragozzine2009][^nasa-fs]
A stellar occultation observed from several European sites on 21 January 2017 measured the outline directly and changed the picture. Its projected shape implied a body larger than previously thought, with a longest axis of about 2,322 km, comparable to Pluto's diameter, and a [[Density|density]] of only about 1.8 g/cm³, similar to other large trans-Neptunian objects; the shape was not consistent with a uniform body in hydrostatic equilibrium.[^ortiz2017] Dunham, Desch and Probst reconciled the observations in 2019 by modelling Haumea as differentiated: a best-fitting outer ellipsoid of about 2,100 × 1,680 × 1,074 km surrounds a core of about 1,626 × 1,446 × 940 km with a density of about 2.68 g/cm³, consistent with hydrated silicates such as kaolinite. In their model the icy mantle is about 70 km thick at the poles and 170 km at the ends of the long axis, holds up to 17 percent of the mass, and gives a mean density of about 2.02 g/cm³ and an albedo of about 0.66.[^dunham2019]
### Surface
[[Spectroscopy|Spectra]] taken in 2005 with the Gemini and Keck telescopes show strong absorptions of crystalline [[Water|water]] ice, like those of Pluto's moon [[Charon_(moon)|Charon]].[^trujillo2007] This is puzzling. Ice condensing at Haumea's surface temperatures, below 50 K, should be amorphous; the crystalline form needs temperatures above about 110 K; and the constant bombardment by cosmic rays and solar particles should convert crystalline ice back to amorphous ice within about ten million years.[^trujillo2007] Best-fit models put pure crystalline water ice on 66–80 percent of the surface.[^trujillo2007] Pinilla-Alonso and colleagues later fitted the spectra with a uniform, intimate mixture of crystalline and amorphous ice in equal parts, with at most 8 percent organic material; the absence of ammonia hydrate argued against cryovolcanism.[^pinilla2009]
Reflecting 60–80 percent of the light that falls on it, the surface is about as bright as fresh snow, and the family members share its fresh, neutral colour, which radiation should have reddened and darkened over time; no convincing resurfacing mechanism has been identified.[^rabinowitz2006][^rabinowitz2008] Unlike [[Makemake]], Haumea shows no methane ice, consistent with a collision that heated the body and drove off its most volatile ices.[^trujillo2007][^tegler2007] Small colour changes as Haumea turns revealed a region redder and darker than the rest, reported in 2009 and possibly an impact site rich in minerals and [[Carbon|carbon]]-bearing organic compounds.[^lacerda2008][^lacerda2009]
## Ring
The occultation of 21 January 2017 also revealed a ring, reported in *Nature* in October 2017: the first ring found around a [[Trans-Neptunian_object|trans-Neptunian object]] or a [[Dwarf_planet|dwarf planet]].[^ortiz2017] About 70 km wide and 2,287 km in radius, the ring blocks roughly half the starlight passing through it and adds about 2.5 percent to the system's brightness. It lies well inside the Roche limit, the distance within which tidal forces keep loose material from gathering into a moon, which would be about 4,400 km for a spherical Haumea and farther for the real, elongated shape.[^ortiz2017]
The ring's plane is inclined a few degrees to Haumea's equator and nearly coincides with the orbital plane of Hiʻiaka.[^ortiz2017][^kondratyev2020] Its radius is close to the 1:3 spin–orbit resonance, at 2,285 ± 8 km, where ring particles orbit once for every three rotations of the body; the elongated, spinning figure sweeps a periodic gravitational tug past the particles, which is strongest at such resonances.[^ortiz2017] Winter, Borderes-Motta and Ribeiro showed in 2019 that orbits exactly in the 1:3 resonance are unstable, but that a stable region of nearly circular, periodic orbits lies close to it, consistent with the ring's observed position.[^winter2019] Rings have since been found around other small bodies of the outer Solar System, notably [[Quaoar]], whose rings lie outside its Roche limit.[^morgado2023]
## Satellites
Haumea has two known moons, Hiʻiaka and Namaka, both found by Brown's team in 2005 with the laser-guide-star adaptive optics system of the W. M. Keck Observatory.[^brown2005][^iauc8636] Hiʻiaka, the outer, larger and brighter moon, first nicknamed "Rudolph", was found on 26 January 2005; it orbits about 49,880 km from Haumea every 49 days on a nearly circular path, and its mass is about 1.8 × 10¹⁹ kg.[^chang2007][^brown2005][^brown2006][^ragozzine2009] Its spectrum shows deep absorptions of nearly pure crystalline water ice at 1.5 and 2 μm, like Haumea's, which led Brown's team to reject capture and treat both moons as fragments of Haumea itself.[^barkume2006][^brown2007]
Namaka, the inner moon, found on 30 June 2005, has about a tenth of Hiʻiaka's mass and orbits in about 18 days at 25,657 km on an eccentric orbit inclined about 13° to Hiʻiaka's, which perturbs it strongly.[^iauc8636][^ragozzine2009] Such eccentric and mutually inclined orbits should have been damped by [[Tide|tides]]; Ragozzine and Brown suggested that the moons passed through a 3:1 resonance with each other relatively recently.[^ragozzine2009]
| Body | Semi-major axis (km) | Mass (kg) | Discovered |
|---|---|---|---|
| Haumea | — | (4.006 ± 0.040) × 10²¹ | 2003–2004 images |
| Hiʻiaka | 49,880 | (1.79 ± 0.11) × 10¹⁹ | 26 January 2005 |
| Namaka | 25,657 | (1.79 ± 1.48) × 10¹⁸ | 30 June 2005 |
From about 2008 to 2011 the moons' orbits were seen nearly edge-on from Earth, so that Namaka passed in front of and behind Haumea; such mutual events can measure sizes and shapes precisely, as the [[Pluto]]–[[Charon_(moon)|Charon]] events did in the late 1980s. One was recorded on 19 June 2009 from the Pico dos Dias Observatory in Brazil.[^fabrycky2008][^dumas2011][^bortoletto2010]
## Collisional family
Haumea is the largest member of a collisional family, the first identified among [[Trans-Neptunian_object|trans-Neptunian objects]]: a group of bodies whose orbits cluster around Haumea's and whose surfaces show the same strong, fresh water-ice spectra. Brown and colleagues identified it in 2007, with members including 1995 SM55, 1996 TO66, 2002 TX300, 2003 OP32 and 2005 RR43, and proposed that they are fragments of Haumea's icy mantle blasted off in the impact that spun it up.[^brown2007] The velocity spread of the family is, however, smaller than such an impact should produce. Schlichting and Sari proposed an alternative: the debris first gathered into a large moon, which was later shattered by a second collision, releasing fragments at lower speeds more like those observed.[^schlichting2009] Proudfoot and Ragozzine modelled the formation of the family in 2019, and a 2024 near-infrared survey has tested which candidate members share its spectral signature.[^proudfoot2019][^proudfoot2024]
Where the collision took place is also debated. In today's sparse [[Kuiper_belt|Kuiper belt]], Levison and colleagues estimated, the probability of such an impact across the Solar System's whole history is below 0.1 percent; in the denser primordial belt it would have been likely, but a tight family formed there would have been dispersed by [[Neptune]]'s later migration, described in the [[Nice_model|Nice model]]. They concluded that the progenitor was more probably a member of the [[Scattered_disc|scattered disc]], where encounters were more frequent.[^levison2008] Because the fragments have spread as far as they have, the collision is thought to have happened at least a billion years ago.[^ragozzine2007]
## Exploration
No spacecraft has visited Haumea. [[NASA]]'s New Horizons imaged it from far away three times, in October 2007, January 2017 and May 2020, at distances of 49, 59 and 63 AU; from its position in the outer Solar System it saw Haumea at high phase angles never reachable from Earth, which constrained how the surface scatters light.[^verbiscer2022] McGranaghan and colleagues found that a flyby mission launched on 1 November 2026, 23 September 2037 or 29 October 2038 could reach Haumea in about 16.45 years using a [[Jupiter]] gravity assist.[^mcgranaghan2011] Poncy and colleagues studied an orbiter for the Haumean system and identified the mass of the probe, its power source and its propulsion as the key technologies such a mission would need.[^poncy2011]
## See also
- [[Dwarf_planet]] · [[Trans-Neptunian_object]]
- [[Kuiper_belt]] · [[Classical_Kuiper_belt_object]]
- [[Pluto]] · [[Makemake]] · [[Eris_(dwarf_planet)]]
- [[Quaoar]] · [[Rings_of_Saturn]]
- [[PORTAL_Solar_System|Solar System portal]]
## Notes
Derived numbers are computed from the cited values: Haumea's mass relative to Pluto, 4.006 / 13.03 ≈ 0.31; to the Moon, 4.006 / 73.46 ≈ 0.055; to Earth, 5,972 / 4.006 ≈ 1,490; the orbital period from the JPL value of about 103,000 days, ≈ 282 years, against 284–285 years for the mean orbit; the lap time at 100 years/s, about 2.8 seconds; Neptune's laps in one Haumea orbit, 284 / 164.8 ≈ 1.7; and Kepler's third law for a = 43.1 AU, 43.1^1.5 ≈ 283 years.
## References
[^sbdb]: JPL Small-Body Database, "136108 Haumea (2003 EL61)" (orbital elements and rotation period fetched 2026-09-18). https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/sbdb_lookup.html#/?sstr=136108
[^nasa-fs]: NASA NSSDCA. "Planetary Fact Sheet". https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/ (fetched 2026-09-18).
[^fs-pluto]: Williams, D. R. "Pluto Fact Sheet". NASA NSSDCA, last updated 11 January 2024. https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/plutofact.html
[^nasa-haumea]: NASA Science (14 November 2017). "Haumea". https://science.nasa.gov/dwarf-planets/haumea/
[^iau0807]: International Astronomical Union (17 September 2008). "IAU names fifth dwarf planet Haumea". News release IAU0807. https://iauarchive.eso.org/news/pressreleases/detail/iau0807/
[^ortiz2017]: Ortiz, J. L.; Santos-Sanz, P.; Sicardy, B.; et al. (2017). "The size, shape, density and ring of the dwarf planet Haumea from a stellar occultation". *Nature* 550: 219–223. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature24051
[^rabinowitz2006]: Rabinowitz, D. L.; Barkume, K.; Brown, M. E.; et al. (2006). "Photometric observations constraining the size, shape, and albedo of 2003 EL61, a rapidly rotating, Pluto-sized object in the Kuiper belt". *The Astrophysical Journal* 639: 1238–1251. https://doi.org/10.1086/499575
[^dunham2019]: Dunham, E. T.; Desch, S. J.; Probst, L. (2019). "Haumea's shape, composition, and internal structure". *The Astrophysical Journal* 877: 41. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ab13b3
[^ragozzine2009]: Ragozzine, D.; Brown, M. E. (2009). "Orbits and masses of the satellites of the dwarf planet Haumea (2003 EL61)". *The Astronomical Journal* 137: 4766–4776. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-6256/137/6/4766
[^brown-trail]: Brown, M. E. "The electronic trail of the discovery of 2003 EL61". Caltech. http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/planetlila/ortiz/
[^hecht2005]: Hecht, J. (21 September 2005). "Astronomer denies improper use of web data". *New Scientist*. https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8033
[^santos2008]: Santos Sanz, P. (26 September 2008). "La historia de Ataecina vs Haumea". *infoastro.com*. http://www.infoastro.com/200809/26ataecina-haumea.html
[^courtland2008]: Courtland, R. (19 September 2008). "Controversial dwarf planet finally named 'Haumea'". *New Scientist*. https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14759-controversial-dwarf-planet-finally-named-haumea/
[^brown2007]: Brown, M. E.; Barkume, K. M.; Ragozzine, D.; Schaller, E. L. (2007). "A collisional family of icy objects in the Kuiper belt". *Nature* 446: 294–296. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature05619
[^trujillo2007]: Trujillo, C. A.; Brown, M. E.; Barkume, K. M.; Schaller, E. L.; Rabinowitz, D. L. (2007). "The surface of 2003 EL61 in the near-infrared". *The Astrophysical Journal* 655: 1172–1178. https://doi.org/10.1086/509861
[^astrobio2005]: NASA Astrobiology Magazine (10 September 2005). "Santa et al.". http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1707
[^mpc]: Minor Planet Center. "(136108) Haumea = 2003 EL61". https://www.minorplanetcenter.net/db_search/show_object?object_id=136108
[^brown-haumea]: Brown, M. E. (17 September 2008). "Dwarf planets: Haumea". Caltech. http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/2003EL61/
[^craig2004]: Craig, R. D. (2004). *Handbook of Polynesian Mythology*. ABC-CLIO, p. 128. ISBN 978-1-57607-894-5.
[^wgsbn2025]: IAU Working Group Small Bodies Nomenclature (22 February 2025). "Rules and guidelines for naming non-cometary small Solar-System bodies". https://www.wgsbn-iau.org/documentation/NamesAndCitations.pdf
[^unicode2022]: Anderson, D. (4 May 2022). "Out of this world: New astronomy symbols approved for the Unicode Standard". Unicode blog. http://blog.unicode.org/2022/05/out-of-this-world-new-astronomy-symbols.html
[^astdys]: AstDyS. "(136108) Haumea ephemerides". Department of Mathematics, University of Pisa. https://newton.spacedys.com/astdys/index.php?pc=1.1.3.0&n=Haumea
[^horizons2133]: JPL Solar System Dynamics. "Horizons" ephemeris for 136108 Haumea near perihelion, June 2133. https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons/
[^trujillo2003]: Trujillo, C. A.; Brown, M. E. (2003). "The Caltech Wide Area Sky Survey". *Earth, Moon, and Planets* 92: 99–112. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:MOON.0000031929.19729.a1
[^brown2004]: Brown, M. E.; Trujillo, C.; Rabinowitz, D. (2004). "Discovery of a candidate inner Oort cloud planetoid". *The Astrophysical Journal* 617: 645–649. https://doi.org/10.1086/422095
[^munoz2021]: Muñoz-Gutiérrez, M. A.; Peimbert, A.; Lehner, M. J.; Wang, S.-Y. (2021). "Long-term dynamical stability in the outer Solar System. I. The regular and chaotic evolution of the 34 largest trans-Neptunian objects". *The Astronomical Journal* 162: 164. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ac1102
[^nesvorny2001]: Nesvorný, D.; Roig, F. (2001). "Mean motion resonances in the transneptunian region. Part II: The 1:2, 3:4, and weaker resonances". *Icarus* 150: 104–123. https://doi.org/10.1006/icar.2000.6568
[^buie2008]: Buie, M. W. (25 June 2008). "Orbit fit and astrometric record for 136108". Southwest Research Institute. http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~buie/kbo/astrom/136108.html
[^kondratyev2018]: Kondratyev, B. P.; Kornoukhov, V. S. (2018). "Determination of the body of the dwarf planet Haumea from observations of a stellar occultation and photometry data". *Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society* 478: 3159–3176. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty1321
[^kondratyev2020]: Kondratyev, B. P.; Kornoukhov, V. S. (2020). "Secular evolution of rings around rotating triaxial gravitating bodies". *Astronomy Reports* 64: 870–875. https://doi.org/10.1134/S1063772920100030
[^stansberry2008]: Stansberry, J.; Grundy, W.; Brown, M.; et al. (2008). "Physical properties of Kuiper belt and Centaur objects: Constraints from the Spitzer Space Telescope". In *The Solar System Beyond Neptune*. University of Arizona Press, p. 161. Bibcode 2008ssbn.book..161S.
[^lellouch2010]: Lellouch, E.; Kiss, C.; Santos-Sanz, P.; et al. (2010). "'TNOs are cool': A survey of the trans-Neptunian region. II. The thermal lightcurve of (136108) Haumea". *Astronomy & Astrophysics* 518: L147. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201014648
[^fornasier2013]: Fornasier, S.; Lellouch, E.; Müller, T.; et al. (2013). "'TNOs are cool': A survey of the trans-Neptunian region. VIII. Combined Herschel PACS and SPIRE observations of nine bright targets at 70–500 μm". *Astronomy & Astrophysics* 555: A15. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201321329
[^pinilla2009]: Pinilla-Alonso, N.; Brunetto, R.; Licandro, J.; et al. (2009). "Study of the surface of 2003 EL61, the largest carbon-depleted object in the trans-neptunian belt". *Astronomy & Astrophysics* 496: 547–556. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/200809733
[^rabinowitz2008]: Rabinowitz, D. L.; Schaefer, B. E.; Schaefer, M.; Tourtellotte, S. W. (2008). "The youthful appearance of the 2003 EL61 collisional family". *The Astronomical Journal* 136: 1502–1509. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-6256/136/4/1502
[^tegler2007]: Tegler, S. C.; Grundy, W. M.; Romanishin, W.; et al. (2007). "Optical spectroscopy of the large Kuiper belt objects 136472 (2005 FY9) and 136108 (2003 EL61)". *The Astronomical Journal* 133: 526–530. https://doi.org/10.1086/510134
[^lacerda2008]: Lacerda, P.; Jewitt, D.; Peixinho, N. (2008). "High-precision photometry of extreme KBO 2003 EL61". *The Astronomical Journal* 135: 1749–1756. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-6256/135/5/1749
[^lacerda2009]: Lacerda, P. (2009). "Time-resolved near-infrared photometry of extreme Kuiper belt object Haumea". *The Astronomical Journal* 137: 3404–3413. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-6256/137/2/3404
[^winter2019]: Winter, O. C.; Borderes-Motta, G.; Ribeiro, T. (2019). "On the location of the ring around the dwarf planet Haumea". *Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society* 484: 3765–3771. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz246
[^morgado2023]: Morgado, B. E.; Sicardy, B.; Braga-Ribas, F.; et al. (2023). "A dense ring of the trans-Neptunian object Quaoar outside its Roche limit". *Nature* 614: 239–243. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05629-6
[^brown2005]: Brown, M. E.; Bouchez, A. H.; Rabinowitz, D.; et al. (2005). "Keck Observatory laser guide star adaptive optics discovery and characterization of a satellite to the large Kuiper belt object 2003 EL61". *The Astrophysical Journal Letters* 632: L45–L48. https://doi.org/10.1086/497641
[^chang2007]: Chang, K. (20 March 2007). "Piecing together the clues of an old collision, iceball by iceball". *The New York Times*. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/science/space/20kuip.html
[^brown2006]: Brown, M. E.; van Dam, M. A.; Bouchez, A. H.; et al. (2006). "Satellites of the largest Kuiper belt objects". *The Astrophysical Journal* 639: L43–L46. https://doi.org/10.1086/501524
[^barkume2006]: Barkume, K. M.; Brown, M. E.; Schaller, E. L. (2006). "Water ice on the satellite of Kuiper belt object 2003 EL61". *The Astrophysical Journal Letters* 640: L87–L89. https://doi.org/10.1086/503159
[^iauc8636]: Green, D. W. E. (1 December 2005). "IAU Circular 8636". http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/iauc/08600/08636.html
[^fabrycky2008]: Fabrycky, D. C.; Holman, M. J.; Ragozzine, D.; et al. (2008). "Mutual events of 2003 EL61 and its inner satellite". *Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society* 40: 462. Bibcode 2008DPS....40.3608F.
[^dumas2011]: Dumas, C.; Carry, B.; Hestroffer, D.; Merlin, F. (2011). "High-contrast observations of (136108) Haumea". *Astronomy & Astrophysics* 528: A105. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201015011
[^bortoletto2010]: Bortoletto, A.; Saito, R. K. (2010). "Observing mutual events of the trans-Neptunian object Haumea and Namaka from Brazil". *Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union* 269: 189–192. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743921310007404
[^schlichting2009]: Schlichting, H. E.; Sari, R. (2009). "The creation of Haumea's collisional family". *The Astrophysical Journal* 700: 1242–1246. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/700/2/1242
[^proudfoot2019]: Proudfoot, B.; Ragozzine, D. (2019). "Modeling the formation of the family of the dwarf planet Haumea". *The Astronomical Journal* 157: 230. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ab19c4
[^proudfoot2024]: Proudfoot, B.; Fernández-Valenzuela, E.; Stansberry, J.; et al. (2024). "A near-infrared survey of candidate Haumea family members". *The Astronomical Journal* 168: 269. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ad864e
[^levison2008]: Levison, H. F.; Morbidelli, A.; Vokrouhlický, D.; Bottke, W. F. (2008). "On a scattered-disk origin for the 2003 EL61 collisional family — an example of the importance of collisions on the dynamics of small bodies". *The Astronomical Journal* 136: 1079–1088. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-6256/136/3/1079
[^ragozzine2007]: Ragozzine, D.; Brown, M. E. (2007). "Candidate members and age estimate of the family of Kuiper belt object 2003 EL61". *The Astronomical Journal* 134: 2160–2167. https://doi.org/10.1086/522334
[^verbiscer2022]: Verbiscer, A. J.; Helfenstein, P.; Porter, S. B.; et al. (2022). "The diverse shapes of dwarf planet and large KBO phase curves observed from New Horizons". *The Planetary Science Journal* 3: 95. https://doi.org/10.3847/PSJ/ac63a6
[^mcgranaghan2011]: McGranaghan, R.; Sagan, B.; Dove, G.; et al. (2011). "A survey of mission opportunities to trans-Neptunian objects". *Journal of the British Interplanetary Society* 64: 296–303. Bibcode 2011JBIS...64..296M.
[^poncy2011]: Poncy, J.; Fontdecaba Baig, J.; Feresin, F.; Martinot, V. (2011). "A preliminary assessment of an orbiter in the Haumean system: How quickly can a planetary orbiter reach such a distant target?". *Acta Astronautica* 68: 622–628. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actaastro.2010.04.011
## External links
- NASA Science: Haumea. https://science.nasa.gov/dwarf-planets/haumea/
- JPL Small-Body Database: 136108 Haumea. https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/sbdb_lookup.html#/?sstr=136108
- Minor Planet Center: (136108) Haumea. https://www.minorplanetcenter.net/db_search/show_object?object_id=136108
- Brown, M. E. "Dwarf planets: Haumea" (Caltech). http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/2003EL61/
## Wikipedia : Wikitube
**Strict pair:** [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haumea) : [Wikitube](https://en.wikitube.io/wiki/Haumea) · pinned revision [1373458684](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1373458684) · 2026-09-18
## Previous hub tags
Hubs: `Life_Physics`. Portals: [[PORTAL_Solar_System]].
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*Solar System portal child articles, wave 1 · 2026-09-18 · drafted · row SOL-070 · explorer state `?obj=Haumea`.*
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