Quaoar

50000 Quaoar ("Kwawar") is a dwarf planetFile:Wikipedia's W.svg[1] found in the Kuiper Belt at approximately 1.6 billion kilometers (roughly equivalent to 1 billion miles, or 42 astronomical units (AU)) away.

The divine comedy
Creationism
Running gags
Jokes aside
Blooper reel
v - t - e
This article requires expansion. Please help.

Though not a stub by pure word count, this article lacks depth of content.

The term Quaoar comes from a character in a Native American creation story, and Weywot (the name of its apparent moon) is derived from Quaoar's son's name.

Quaoar is about 1250 kilometers in diameter, approximately the size of Pluto's "moon"[2] Charon. And before you ask — no, it's not a planet, either.[3]

The science

Astronomy

Quaoar was discovered by Chad Trujillo and Michael E. Brown, using a 48-inch wide telescope at Palomar Observatory at the California Institute of Technology. Using the Hubble Space TelescopeFile:Wikipedia's W.svg to measure its width and diameter, it was found to be around 800 miles in diameter.

It takes around 288 Earth years to complete one "Quaoarian" orbit, and it is composed primarily of various volatile elements and rocks.[4] It also apparently has a moon, named Weywot (about 40 km across).

The woo

Creationism

Quaoar was already named after a Native American creation god, yet as usual, the creationists are trying to give their own god all the credit.

John Hartnett in the Journal of Creation claims that the composition of Quaoar's surface, being water and ammonia, is "clear evidence" in favor of a young solar system, and likewise against a 5-billion-year timescale, as the smooth ice surface "would have worn away" in just a few million years.[5] Jonathan Sarfati has also taken the time to reassure us that Quaoar, like the comets, was created on the fourth day.[6]

In reality, the surface, just like that of Pluto, is thought to refresh itself through cryovolcanism.[7]

Astrology

Ian Musgrave on The Panda's Thumb has also suggested how to do horoscopes involving Quaoar and the constellation Ophiuchus.[8] Astrologers have yet to take up his helpful suggestion.

gollark: C++ 40: We Hate Compiler Writers.
gollark: Yes, exactly.
gollark: C++ 30: Bow Down to Your Robot Overlords.
gollark: C++: Rust but Worse.
gollark: Sooo... do I just need to redefine everything with an `environment` argument or which makes FS calls internally?

References
  1. Or maybe not. It's currently classified as a Trans-Neptunian Object, or TNO, and it is one of the potential dwarf planets out there.
  2. There's a debate over whether Charon is a moon or not.
  3. http://www.chadtrujillo.com/quaoar/
  4. http://www.space.com/25817-quaoar.html
  5. http://creation.mobi/article/5481
  6. http://creation.com/cometsportents-of-doom-or-indicators-of-youth
  7. http://www2.ess.ucla.edu/~jewitt/quaoar.html
  8. http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2011/01/a-horoscope-id.html
This astronomy-related article is a stub.
You can help RationalWiki by expanding it.
This article is issued from Rationalwiki. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.