Weywot

Common card · No. 326318

Weywot (formal designation (50000) Quaoar I) is the only confirmed moon of the trans-Neptunian dwarf planet Quaoar. It was discovered by Michael Brown and Terry-Ann Suer using images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope on 14 February 2006. It is named after the Tongva sky god and son of Quaoar. Weywot is an elongated body with an average diameter of 146 km (91 mi). It has an extremely dark, water ice-rich surface with an albedo of about 0.04, making it one of the darkest known moons beyond Neptune. Weywot follows a nearly circular orbit around Quaoar, revolving every 12.4 days at an average distance of 13,300 km (8,300 mi). It is thought to play a role in maintaining Quaoar's outer ring by gravitationally influencing it in an orbital resonance.

Read on Wikipedia · Image Processing by Nrco0e; images taken by Estela Fernandez-Valenzuela with Hubble Space Telescope, archived by STScI/NASA, CC BY 4.0