Using computer simulations, NASA scientists pieced together the story of how the dwarf planet Haumea, which lies in the Kuiper Belt of icy worlds beyond the orbit of the outermost planet Neptune, became one of the world’s largest objects. unusual in the solar system.
About the size of Pluto, Haumea is strange in many ways. It spins faster than anything its size, spinning around its axis in just four hours.
As detailed by NASA, due to its rapid spin, Haumea is shaped like an empty soccer ball instead of a sphere.
More data
Its surface, made largely of water ice, is unlike almost any other surface in the Kuiper Belt, except for a dozen of its “siblings” that have orbits similar to Haumea’s and appear to be related to it, forming the only known “family”. . Objects in the Kuiper belt.
Haumea is too far away to accurately measure using an Earth-based telescope, and no space mission has yet visited it, so data is sparse.
As NASA detailed, to study Haumea, scientists use computer models to make predictions that fill in the gaps.
The researchers started by inputting just three pieces of information into their models: Haumea’s estimated size and mass, and its brief four-hour “day.”
The models provide a refined prediction of the size of Haumea, its overall density, and the density and size of its core, among other features.
With the information available, the team sought to simulate billions of years of evolution to see what combination of features would evolve a baby Haumea into the mature dwarf planet it is today.
Research
As detailed by NASA, scientists assumed that the baby Haumea was 3% more massive than the family members that were once part of it. They also assumed that Haumea likely had a different turnover rate and was larger in volume.
They then slightly changed one of these features at a time in their models, such as adjusting Haumea’s size up or down, and ran dozens of simulations to see how small changes in its early years would influence Haumea’s evolution.
When the simulations produced results that resembled actual Haumea, the scientists knew they had arrived at a story that matched reality.
Based on their model, the experts hypothesized that when the planets were forming and everything was revolving around the solar system, Haumea collided with another object.
family of planets
As detailed by NASA, such a powerful impact, they say, would have hurled chunks of Haumea into far more widely dispersed orbits than members of the family.
The Haumean family we see today came later, when the structure of the dwarf planet was taking shape.
Meanwhile, Haumea’s rocks, which like all rocks are slightly radioactive, generated heat that melted some of the ice, creating an ocean below the surface.
Text with information from NASA
