Haumea

I stumbled upon some Haumea hype lately in Youtube. Most lately Anton Petrov links to Jessica Noviello et al. (pdf).

The aim is to survey this 40ish AU iceball for colonisation, in advance of the Taurian invasion.

Haumea formerly 2003 EL₆₁ is one of our Kuiper-Belt ladies, in this case in intermittent 7:12 libration with Neptune - slower than the 2:3 (8:12) Plutini so exterior. Haumea spins 234-minutes-55.116-seconds so almost four hours. It has two moons. Those moons, assuming they are near pure iceballs and that Kepler hasn't taken an off day, allow a Haumea mass-estimate of 4.006×10²¹ kg. It lately occulted a star which has given us a peek at the ring and at the main body's dimensions: 1050×840×537 km. Larger diameter than Orcus; likely smaller volume.

Going back to Haumea's orbit, it shares that with a dynamical family. In fact (19308) 1996 TO₆₆ was found before Haumea itself. I mentioned Plutinos. Haumeans are unlike Plutinos inasmuch as Plutinos (and Triton) are independent captures, and that Haumeans are in other resonances although, not always Haumea's anymore. Haumeans exist in their near-Haumea orbit because something smashed their parent body. This smash is what Noviello's paper describes.

Having smashed, Haumea proper redifferentiated its core. The sinking of silicates in the mush both spun its rotation - its day - faster (so shorter), and warmed up a water ocean. This ocean eventually froze and the core partially dehydrated.

Haumea now should have a hydrated silicate core of density 2700 kg/m³, with its lobes a more icy 2008.