10-11-2017, 12:39 PM
Nice story about fellow Big Island resident Ron Thiel having an asteroid named after him. Thanks TomK.
Some years ago a dwarf planet beyond Neptune was discovered by either the Keck or Gemini telescope on Mauna Kea (I've read different versions of the story). Named Haumea for the Hawaiian goddess of childbirth, it also has two moons orbiting around it, Hiiaka and Namaka.
It's now been determined that it also has a ring, the first dwarf beyond Neptune discovered to have one:
What the new Nature findings mean for Haumea's classification is the long run is unclear. Is it an entirely new type of world? How many small bodies beyond Neptune have rings? At the moment, we have only a small sample of worlds to draw from for conclusions, and even less of those have been visited by spacecraft.
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-dav...-ring.html
“Facts fall from the poetic observer as ripe seeds.” -Henry Thoreau
Some years ago a dwarf planet beyond Neptune was discovered by either the Keck or Gemini telescope on Mauna Kea (I've read different versions of the story). Named Haumea for the Hawaiian goddess of childbirth, it also has two moons orbiting around it, Hiiaka and Namaka.
It's now been determined that it also has a ring, the first dwarf beyond Neptune discovered to have one:
What the new Nature findings mean for Haumea's classification is the long run is unclear. Is it an entirely new type of world? How many small bodies beyond Neptune have rings? At the moment, we have only a small sample of worlds to draw from for conclusions, and even less of those have been visited by spacecraft.
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-dav...-ring.html
“Facts fall from the poetic observer as ripe seeds.” -Henry Thoreau
“We do this thing not because it is easy, but because we thought it would be easy.”