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Hygiea: the new smallest member of the dwarf planet community?

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https://us.cnn.com/2019/10/28/world/hygi...index.html

EXCERPT: . . . Hygiea is the fourth largest object in the asteroid belt behind Ceres, Vesta and Pallas. Vesta and Pallas are large asteroids. [...] This is the first time astronomers have been able to study the surface, shape and size of Hygiea in high resolution. If it is deemed a dwarf planet, Hygiea would become the smallest dwarf planet in our solar system. The study published Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy.

In order to be classified as a dwarf planet, a celestial body must fulfill certain criteria. It must orbit around the sun and must not be a moon. In addition to this, it must not "clear the neighborhood" around its orbit like a planet does, and must have been molded by its own gravity into a round or nearly round shape. Hygiea checks many of those boxes.

"Thanks to the unique capability of the SPHERE instrument on the VLT, which is one of the most powerful imaging systems in the world, we could resolve Hygiea's shape, which turns out to be nearly spherical," lead researcher Pierre Vernazza from the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille in France said in a statement. "Thanks to these images, Hygiea may be reclassified as a dwarf planet, so far the smallest in the Solar System," he added. (MORE - details)
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