Quaoar

[[Image:Quaoar PRC2002-17e.jpg|thumb|right|165px|Hubble Space Telescope image of Quaoar. Sixteen exposures for this blurry blob.]]{{astronomy}}
'''50000 Quaoar''' ("Kwawar") is a {{wpl|dwarf planet}}{{efn|Or maybe not. It's currently a Trans-Neptunian Object or TNO and is one of the ''potential'' dwarf planets out there}} found in the Kuiper Belt (thereby rendering it a Kuiper Belt Object, or KBO) located approximately 1.6 billion kilometers (roughly equivalent to 1 billion miles, or 42 astronomical units (AU){{efn|One AU is equivalent to the distance between the Earth and the Sun, or roughly 93 million miles (150 million kilometers).}}) from the [[Sun]]. 

Quaoar is about 1250 kilometers in diameter, approximately the size of [[Pluto]]'s "moon"{{efn|There's a debate over whether Charon is a moon or not. This is because rather than orbiting Pluto, Charon and Pluto orbit ''each other''.}} Charon. And before you ask — no, it's not a [[planet]], either.{{efn|Unless Quaoar has cleared out its orbital neighborhood, which being a KBO it obviously hasn't, it is not a planet.}}<ref name="chad">[https://web.archive.org/web/20210909072609/http://www.chadtrujillo.com/quaoar/ FAQ about Quaoar] - Chad Trujillo's homepage</ref>

==Etymology==
Quaoar is named after, well, Quaoar, the creator [[deity]] of the [[Native American|indigenous]] {{wpl|Tongva}} of [[California]].<ref name="chad" /> The team that discovered Quaoar named it this in line with the International Astronomical Union's (IAU) decree that all non-resonant KBOs must be named after creator deities.<ref>[https://minorplanetcenter.net/iau/info/HowNamed.html How are minor planets named?]</ref>

==The science==
===Astronomy===
Chad Trujillo and Michael E. Brown discovered Quaoar with a 48-inch wide telescope at Palomar Observatory at the California Institute of Technology. Using the {{wpl|Hubble Space Telescope}} (HST) to measure its width and diameter, they found it to be around 800 miles in diameter.<ref name="chad" /> Specifically, because the HST has much better resolution than any ground-based telescope, they were able to measure Quaoar's size about ten times over the course of an hour by comparing it to a nearby [[star]].<ref name="chad" />

It takes around 288 Earth years to complete one "Quaoarian" orbit. It is also composed primarily of various volatile elements and rocks.<ref>[https://www.space.com/25817-quaoar.html Quaoar: Planetoid Beyond Pluto]</ref> It also has a moon, named {{wpl|Weywot||,}} with a diameter of about 200 kilometers.{{efn|Weywot is named after the son of the aforementioned Tongva creator god.}}

A 2023 paper in ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'' revealed that Quaoar has a ring. While this itself isn't unusual (plenty of Outer Solar System objects have rings), the fact that Quaoar's rings lie outside its {{wpl|Roche limit}} is.<ref name="msn">[https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/tiny-dwarf-planet-quaoar-has-a-mysterious-ring/ar-AA17n0Sh Tiny dwarf planet Quaoar has a mysterious ring]</ref> Because Quaoar has a moon, what is expected to happen is that Quaoar's rings should've been [[gravitationally]] shepherded into a [[moon]]. That has not happened however. Scientists [[hypothesize]] this is because the sheer cold of the Kuiper Belt prevents the rings from coalescing into larger objects, but until more research is done this is just speculation.<ref name="msn" />

[[Image:Quaoar-red-ssc2004-05c.jpg|thumb|center|350px|An artist's conception of what Quaoar might look like.]]

==The woo==
===Creationism===
{{main|Creationism}}
Quaoar already became named after a Native American creation god, yet as usual, the [[creationists]] are trying to give [[Yaweh]] all the credit. 

John Hartnett in the ''Journal of Creation'' claims that the composition of Quaoar's surface, being water and ammonia, is "[[one_single_proof|clear evidence]]" in favor of a [[YEC|young solar system]]. He uses it to argue against a [[deep time|5-billion-year timescale]], as the smooth ice surface "would have worn away" in just a few million years.<ref>"[https://web.archive.org/web/20150416112404/http://creation.mobi/article/5481 The Waters Above]" - CMI Mobile. [[Internet Archive|Archived]] from the original.</ref> [[Jonathan Sarfati]] has also taken the time to reassure us that Quaoar, like the comets, [[Poe's_Law|was created on the fourth day]].<ref>"[https://web.archive.org/web/20100103014145/https://creation.com/cometsportents-of-doom-or-indicators-of-youth Comets] - Portents of doom or indicators of youth?" - Jonathan Sarfati. Creation Ministries International. Archived from the original webpage.</ref>

In reality, the surface, like that of Pluto, is thought to refresh itself through {{wpl|cryovolcanism||.}}<ref>[http://www2.ess.ucla.edu/~jewitt/quaoar.html David Jewitt: Kuiper Belt: Latest Research]</ref>{{efn|The temperatures in the Kuiper Belt are cold, extremely so, meaning that the conducting mechanism of geological activity isn't rock as it is here on Earth, but water instead.}}  This explains Quaoar's relatively fresh surface in a way that doesn't [[magic|violate]] the laws of [[physics]]. Of course, even if cryovolcanism wasn't the answer to the problem of Quaoar's young (on astronomical scales) surface, that wouldn't mean [[Goddidit|God]] is the answer. We'd have to take into account all ''possible'' physical processes ''before'' even thinking of invoking a [[supernatural]] causal factor.

===Astrology===
{{main|Astrology}}
Ian Musgrave on [[The Panda's Thumb]] has also suggested how to do [[horoscope]]s involving Quaoar and the constellation Ophiuchus.<ref>"[https://pandasthumb.org/archives/2011/01/a-horoscope-id.html A Horoscope I'd like to see]" - Ian Musgrave on The Panda's Thumb blog</ref> Astrologers have yet to take up his helpful suggestion.

==Notes==
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==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Dwarf planets]]

Categories: Astronomy, Dwarf planets