Quaoar
Quaoar is a Kuiper Belt object, approximately half the size of Pluto, first discovered in 2002, by Michael Brown and Chadwick Trujillo at Caltech.[1] It orbits Sol, our sun, approximately 50 astronomical units, about one third farther than Pluto.[2]
Quaoar is orbited by rings of debris, and by at least two moons.[3]
References
[edit | edit source]- ↑
"Hubble Spots an Icy World Far Beyond Pluto". NASA Science. 2002-10-07. Archived from the original on 2026-03-30. Retrieved 2026-07-08.
Approximately half the size of Pluto, the icy world 2002 LM60, dubbed "Quaoar" (pronounced kwa-whar) by its discoverers, is the farthest object in the solar system ever to be resolved by a telescope. It was initially detected by a ground-based telescope, as simply a dot of light, until astronomers aimed the powerful Hubble telescope at it.
- ↑
"Quaoar's orbit in the Solar System". www.esahubble.org. 2002-10-07. Retrieved 2026-07-08.
Quaoar is about 4 billion miles away, more than a billion miles farther than Pluto. Like Pluto,
- ↑ Nola Taylor Tillman (2025-09-10). "The weird ringed dwarf planet Quaoar may have an extra moon, astronomers discover". Space.com. Retrieved 2026-07-08.