← ALL CELESTIAL BODIES
Credit: NASA/ESA/STScI Public domain — NASA Media Usage Guidelines
Physical Properties
555 km
17.6788 h
0.124
Orbit
Sun
43.694 AU
0.04
7.99°
288.84 yr
Ring System
Two narrow rings discovered in 2023 via stellar occultations — both lie well beyond the classical Roche limit.
Notable Moons
Sources & Further Reading
- Wikipedia — extensive cross-referenced article
- Morgado et al., Nature 2023 u2014 A dense ring of the trans-Neptunian object Quaoar (2023)
Numerical values (radius, mass, orbital elements, temperatures) are drawn from NASA NSSDC Planetary Fact Sheets, JPL Horizons, and the JPL Small-Body Database. Last refreshed: 2026-04-18 18:19:28.
50000 Quaoar is a large classical Kuiper Belt Object (cubewano) with one known moon, Weywot. In 2023 a stellar-occultation campaign discovered two narrow rings around Quaoar — the first ring system detected outside the giant-planet region of the Solar System. Intriguingly, the rings sit well outside the classical Roche limit, challenging our understanding of how rings form and persist.