Solar System Asteroids, comets and dwarf planets
Haumea winked at me! The incredible dwarf planet Haumea
Pablo Santos Sanz Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia
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About the lecture
On 21 January 2017, the dwarf planet Haumea, some 7600 million kilometres from Earth, passed between a star and us. Observing this "stellar wink" by Haumea has provided very valuable information about this dwarf planet in the trans-Neptunian region, one of the most remote and populated regions of our Solar System. The talk will show the surprising and unexpected results obtained —such as the discovery of a ring around Haumea— using this technique, known as stellar occultation. It will explain the ins and outs of a stellar occultation, its technical difficulties and why this technique gives such precise and spectacular measurements, comparable in many cases to those obtained by space missions.
Text of the official description published by IAA-CSIC on YouTube.
