Planet
Quaoar
Dwarf planet

Ringed dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt
Photo: JosephTheDalmatian · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Quaoar is a ringed dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a band of icy planetesimals beyond Neptune. It has an ellipsoidal shape with an average diameter of about 1,100 km (680 mi), about half the size of the dwarf planet Pluto. The object was discovered by American astronomers Chad Trujillo and Michael Brown at Palomar Observatory on 4 June 2002. Quaoar has a reddish surface made of crystalline water ice, tholins, and traces of frozen methane.
Description from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Key facts
Distance
Outer solar system
Mean radius
535 km
Orbital period
286 years
Discovered
2002 · Chadwick Trujillo









