Huya

The Discovery of Dwarf Planet Huya

Since the beginning of time, the universe has been in constant growth. As humans, we are always seeking new frontier and our curiosity eagerly tent us to discover more and more.

We are used to pushing the limits and discover new things every single day.

The universe is a vast, empty and cold space of matter. But, that’s doesn’t mean we cannot find incredible, amazing and shocking phenomenon occurring thought out the universe.

Call it a black hole, gigantic suns 100x times bigger than our sun and even quasar with 160 million times more water than earth.

Universe is boring and predictable, huh?

A new Dwarf Planet: Huya

In March 2000, the Venezuelan Ignacio Ferrín spotted a weird but familiar figure on the night sky during a routine observation. The preliminary observation had shown a noticeable small mass, really similar to a planet. After some studies, Ferrín called Huya a trans-Neptunian object and binary system from the Kuiper belt in the outermost region of our Solar System.

Huya is a plutino being located in a 2:3 mean-motion resonance with Neptune. Since its discovery, many astronomers have been arguing if Huya is really a spheroid with small albedo spots or a dwarf planet.

Until these days, Huya is officially a dwarf planet with a total diameter of approximately 406 kilometer. Such a size catalogues it as a dwarf planet, but Light-curve-amplitude analysis system has shown it only has small deviations like a spheroid.

His name ‘‘Huya’’ comes from the rain god of the Wayuu tribe of Venezuela and Colombia. This tribe believes deities live beyond stars and suns and it’s associated with winter.