Quaoar

Feb. 9, 2023

Astronomers have recently spotted a ring around a Pluto-sized dwarf planet called Quaoar in the outer reaches of the solar system.

Key facts about Quaoar:

Quaoar is a dwarf planet that’s located in the Kuiper Belt at the solar system’s edge.
It is about 697 miles wide (1,121 kilometers).
It is roughly one-twelfth the diameter of Earth, one-third the diameter of the Moon, and half the size of Pluto.
Quaoar is greater in volume than all known asteroids combined.
Quaoar has its own moon, the 100-mile-wide (160 km) Weywot.
Its surface is moderately red and composed of low-density ices mixed with rock.
It takes about 288 years for Quaoar to go once around the sun in a roughly circular orbit.

What is Kuiper Belt?

Kuiper belt, also called the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt, is a flat ring of small icy bodiesthat revolve around the Sun beyond the orbit of the planet Neptune.
There are millions of these icy objects, collectively referred to as Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) or trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), in this belt.
The Kuiper Belt is a region of leftovers from the solar system's early history.
It is thought to be the source of most of the observed short-period comets, particularly those that orbit the Sun in less than 20 years.