Dwarf Planet Eris

Nov. 18, 2023

Scientists are gaining a fuller understanding of Eris and its differences with Pluto.

About Dwarf Planet Eris:

  • It was discovered on January 5, 2005.
  • It is named after the ancient Greek goddess of discord.
  • It is a member of a group of objects that orbit in a disc-like zone beyond the orbit of Neptune called the Kuiper Belt.
  • It appears to have a rocky interior below a shell of ice.
  • It has about 25% more mass than Pluto.
  • Eris orbits at an average of about 68 times further from the sun than Earth, taking 557 years to complete one orbit.
  • It completes one rotation every 25.9 hours, making its day length similar to ours.
  • It has a very small moon called Dysnomia, which has a nearly circular orbit lasting about 16 days.
  • Just like the Earth-moon system, tides on Eris slowly push Dysnomia away and slow down the spin of Eris, and this process has come to completion.
  • Eris and Dysnomia always present the same face to each other.
  • Atmosphere:
    • The dwarf planet is often so far from the Sun that its atmosphere collapses and freezes, falling to the surface as snow.
    • As it gets closer to the Sun in its faraway orbit, the atmosphere thaws.

What is a Dwarf Planet?

  • It is a celestial body that -orbits the sun, has enough mass to assume a nearly round shape, has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and is not a moon.

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