50000 Quaoar
A Kuiper belt world half Pluto's width, with a ring and the moon Weywot.
Where it is right now
50000 Quaoar is in Scutum, 41.7 AU away, magnitude 18.8.
Computed for 2 August 2026, 17:00 UTC, and recomputed at least hourly. This page is cached, so treat the line above as accurate to the hour rather than to the second. The map shows the live position.
Position from a Kepler propagation of the published elements below, accurate to about an arcminute.
Facts
Every line carries the source it came from.
- Diameter
- 1,090 kmSource: Published occultation and Herschel/Spitzer radiometry results
- Orbital period
- 283.5 yearsSource: NASA/JPL Small-Body Database
- Distance from the Sun
- 43.156 AU on averageSource: NASA/JPL Small-Body Database
- Orbit shape
- eccentricity 0.035, inclined 8.0 degrees to the eclipticSource: NASA/JPL Small-Body Database
- Class
- Trans-neptunian objectSource: NASA/JPL Small-Body Database
- Discovered
- 2002-Jun-04 by Trujillo, C. A., Brown, M. E.Source: NASA/JPL Small-Body Database
Physical size
- Mean radius
- 545 km
- Diameter
- 1,090 km across
- Absolute magnitude H
- 2.41
Orbit
Elements are heliocentric, referred to the J2000.0 ecliptic.
- Average distance from the Sun
- 43.156 AU (6,456.1 million km)
- Closest and furthest
- 41.637 AU (6,228.8 million km) to 44.675 AU (6,683.3 million km)
- Eccentricity
- 0.0352, almost circular
- Inclination to the ecliptic
- 7.99 degrees
- Orbital period
- 284 years
- Longitude of ascending node
- 188.92 degrees
- Argument of periapsis
- 163.21 degrees
- Mean anomaly at J2000.0
- 259.28 degrees
Claim this body
$15 once, and it stays yours
A real catalogued body with a real name.
A claim is a listing on this map. Not an IAU designation. Permanent, with one disclosed exception for dead links: see the terms.
Catalog id quaoar. 3,172 objects on the map, of which 171 are hand-authored with sourced facts.