A new body in the solar system has been named: the Umeya dwarf planet

The dwarf planet 2003 EL61 is henceforth named after the Hawaiian goddess of fertility * Haumea has two moons and their names are the names of the children born to Haumea in Hawaiian mythology - from parts of her body * The moons are rocks that were blown from the dwarf planet during a collision with another body

The World Astronomical Union has announced the name of a new dwarf planet that joins the four known dwarf planets in the solar system: Ceres, Pluto, Eris andMaki-maki. As you remember, Pluto lost its status as a planet and was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006 following the discovery of Eris, which is larger than it, which led tostruggle Huge among the astronomers who believed that Eris and the other objects of a similar size deserve the status of a planet, as Pluto was awarded after its discovery in 1930.

The bone was previously known as 2003 EL61, and is now known as Haumea after the goddess of birth and fertility in Native Hawaiian mythology. The name was decided by members of a committee of the World Astronomical Union responsible for naming small bodies in the solar system, and the working group for nomenclature of bodies in the solar system.

The discovery of the body shaped like an (American) football was first announced in 2005. It was discovered by a group of researchers led by Jose-Luiz Ortiz from the Sierra Nevada Observatory in Spain, and by the team of Mike Brown from Caltech, who is also behind the discovery of the dwarf planet Eris. Brown and his colleagues first observed the new dwarf planet in December 2004, shortly after Christmas, leading them to call it Santa, the Bone Waves wrote in their blog this week. The new name was suggested by a co-discoverer, David Rabinovitch of Yale University, who claimed that it was particularly appropriate because the Umayyad goddess also represents bedrock and observations of the celestial body showed that it is composed almost entirely of rock and covered in a crust of almost pure snow. Brown added.

Omia is similar in diameter to Pluto, but it is much thinner and contains only about a third of Pluto's mass. The scientists believe that the long and narrow shape of the Omiya is due to its rapid rotation - it rotates around its axis every four hours. Huma is now 50 AU from the Sun, and can approach as close as 35 AU, like most rocky trans-Neptunian bodies.

Two accompanying objects were also discovered near the Omiya, apparently rocks that were torn from it when a large body hit the dwarf planet. These two moons were also named - Hi'iaka and Namaka, after the names of the Umami's two children in Hawaiian mythology. In the story, her children were created from parts of her body, just as Humea's moons were born from it.

• To the page about Humea on Mike Brown's website
• A video describing the Umayya's rotation around its axis