Facts about Quaoar

1. 08

   Discovered by astronomers Chad Trujillo and David Rabinowitz on June 4, 2002, Quaoar remained the largest known object in the Kuiper Belt for three years until Eris was found.

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2. 07

   Approximately 1,200 kilometers away from Quaoar, its moon Weywot completes one orbit around the dwarf planet every 12.4 Earth days.

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3. 06

   Spectroscopic observations indicate that Quaoar's surface contains methane and possibly other frozen volatiles similar to those found on Pluto and Eris.

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4. 05

   Quaoar possesses a moon named Weywot, discovered in 2009, orbiting at a distance of approximately 12,500 kilometers from the dwarf planet.

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5. 04

   Quaoar's surface temperature reaches approximately minus 230 degrees Celsius, making it one of the coldest known objects in our solar system.

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6. 03

   In 2011, astronomers detected a ring system orbiting Quaoar, making it the first known ringed object in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune.

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7. 02

   Quaoar's diameter measures approximately 1,110 kilometers, making it roughly half the size of Pluto in the distant Kuiper Belt region.

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8. 01

   The dwarf planet Quaoar, discovered in 2002, orbits the Sun once every 288 Earth years from the Kuiper Belt.

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