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The contents of the Hiʻiaka (moon) page were
merged into
Moons of Haumea. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected page, please see its history; for the discussion at that location, see
its talk page. (13 January 2017)
The contents of the Namaka (moon) page were
merged into
Moons of Haumea. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected page, please see its history; for the discussion at that location, see
its talk page. (13 January 2017)
Namaka, the smaller, inner satellite of Haumea, was discovered on June 30, 2005, and nicknamed "Blitzen". In the myth of the Hawaiian goddess Haumea, "Her many children sprang from different parts of her body." Thus the Haumean moons are named after Haumea's children. -- these two sentences seem like non sequiters.
The article is a little confusing on the subject of actually viewing the moons. Perhaps this paragraph could be clarified:
At present, the orbits of the Haumean moons appear almost exactly edge-on from Earth, with the moons potentially occulting Haumea.[8] Observation of such transits would provide precise information on the size and shape of Haumea and its moons, as happened in the late 1980s with Pluto and Charon.[9] The tiny change in brightness of the system during these occultations will require at least a medium-aperture professional telescope for detection.[10] Hiʻiaka last occulted Haumea in 1999, a few years before discovery, and will not do so again for some 130 years.[11] However, in a situation unique among regular satellites, Namaka's orbit is being greatly torqued by Hiʻiaka, preserving the viewing angle of Namaka–Haumea transits for several more years.
Over the timescale of the system, it should have been tidally damped into a more circular orbit. - such sentences appear to be jargon and don't explain anything to the general reader.
It appears that it has been disturbed by orbital resonances with the more massive Hiʻiaka, due to converging orbits as they move outward from Haumea due to tidal dissipation. The moons may have been caught in and then escaped from orbital resonance several times; they currently are in or at least close to an 8:3 resonance. This strongly perturbs Namaka's orbit, with a current precession of ~20°. -- this is another example of jargon plus poor wording ("Tt appears that it has been disturbed by..")
"The unusual spectrum, along with similar absorption lines on Haumea, led Brown and colleagues to conclude that capture was an unlikely model for the system's formation,..." - what does "capture" mean in this context?
OK, even though I don't exactly quite understand everything, you guys have done a standout job of being accommodatating and explaining. —
Mattisse (
Talk)
04:32, 13 February 2009 (UTC)reply
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In different places in the article, Hi'aka is stated as having either a 310km, 320km, or 350km diameter (or 160km radius), and I don't see much that implies any of those figures being more reliable than the others; indeed few if any are even cited, so where did they come from? It is after all a nearly 13% (so, more than 1/8th) variation from smallest to largest, which is fairly significant, and which one you end up thinking it is could depend entirely on what bit of the article you randomly skim. Which of them should we standardise on, if indeed we shouldn't instead go with "330km +/- 20km"? Note that this would also seem to affect the size of Namaka given that most of its stated dimensions are simply derived from an educated guess that it's "about 1/10th the mass" of Hi'aka and about the same density...
51.7.16.171 (
talk)
10:24, 5 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Secondary thought: looking at the most recent (2009!) citation, which is where the (most likely?) "320km" estimate seems to come from, the sizes seem to be derived from the (still somewhat loose, due to poor observation SNR, difficultly resolving Namaka at all, and the complex mutual interactions of the three bodies' gravity) orbit-determined masses and an assumed and density, and secondarily from observed magnitude and assumed albedo. Seeing as both of those have been shown to be incorrect for Haumea itself by a recent (2017) occultation survey, what might that mean for the sizes of the satellites, assuming they're made of similar stuff to their parent given that the Haumea system and the Haumids in general are all one big collisional family? The lower-than-expected albedo would seem to pull the size estimates upwards, but at the same time the revised density (reduced for Haumea itself, but still ~1.8x the "pure water" 1.0g/mL assumed for its satellites, thus a considerable increase) would seem to pull them downwards...
51.7.16.171 (
talk)
10:46, 5 August 2019 (UTC)reply
Your figure "330km +/- 20km" probably vastly underestimates the uncertainty, which is actually many tens of percent (it's more like "330 +/- 200"). Compare
this recent study by Hastings et al. (2016). The Wiki article in its current form does say that the size is uncertain, but you are right that one figure for its size should be agreed on for the purpose of clarity. Given that the 2016 paper I linked states a radius of 150 km (+/- tens of percent), maybe this should be the value used here. It is important to understand that our knowledge of the physical properties of these objects is very preliminary. Arguing over a difference of a few tens of km's is pointless. The value of 300 km is likely right to one
significant figure. Also, this isn't anything specific to Haumea's satellites. Our size estimates of most small Solar System bodies are uncertain! To avoid the impression that our knowledge of Haumea's moons is somehow more uncertain that other objects, this point shouldn't be given more room in this article than in others.
Renerpho (
talk)
13:52, 5 August 2019 (UTC)reply