October 29, 2019

Asteroid Hygiea is spherical and could be reclassified as a dwarf planet

An article published in the journal “Nature Astronomy” reports a study of asteroid Hygiea that shows its roughly spherical shape, one of the requirements to be cataloged as a dwarf planet. A team of researchers led by Pierre Vernazza of the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique of Marseille, France, used the SPHERE instrument mounted on ESO’s VLT in Chile to obtain detailed images of one of the largest objects in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. If Hygiea were reclassified, it would be the smallest dwarf planet with a diameter that is less than half that of Ceres.