Observing the disappearance of a star behind a planet "Haumea" In the UAE sky for 38 seconds
Abu Dhabi, 5 May / WAM / The Seal Astronomical Observatory, affiliated with the International Astronomy Center in Abu Dhabi, succeeded yesterday evening, Monday, in monitoring and documenting a rare astronomical phenomenon represented by the disappearance of one of the stars behind the dwarf planet “Haumea” for a period of 38 seconds, in a scientific event known astronomically as “occultation”, as part of a global monitoring campaign in which specialized international observatories participated.
Engineer Muhammad Shawkat Odeh, Director of the International Astronomy Center, said that the importance of this occultation is due to the fact that the dwarf planet Haumea, whose orbit lies behind the planet Neptune near the dwarf planet Pluto, is one of the unique astronomical objects because it has two moons and rings surrounding it, which makes the occultation phenomenon a rare scientific opportunity to study its diameter, orbit, and structure, in addition to analyzing its atmosphere, if any, whether through the precise timing of the occultation or through spectroscopic analysis.
He pointed out that the monitoring results revealed two prominent scientific observations. The first was the recording of a sudden disappearance of the star about 14 seconds before the main occultation, which is likely to have been caused by the rings of Haumea or one of its moons, with the ring hypothesis being more likely due to the repetition of the same decrease about 11 seconds after the end of the main occultation.
He explained that the attached photogram clearly showed the sudden decrease in the brightness of the star before the main occultation, then the decrease again after its appearance, while the brightness curves of the other reference stars remained stable throughout the monitoring process, which enhances the accuracy of the recorded results.
Odeh pointed out that these results may open the door to new scientific possibilities, including that the actual diameter of the dwarf planet is smaller than previous estimates, or that the occultation path was deviated to the north or south than expected, stressing that issuing any final conclusions is still early before reviewing the results of other observatories participating in the campaign.
He stated that the occulting star is originally a binary star accompanied by a faint star, and the location of this companion is still not precisely determined, as its presence north of the main star would have made its occultation visible from Europe, while its appearance to the south would have made it visible from South Africa, which is a type of monitoring that requires taking several pictures per second, but the Arab region did not fall within the scope of this sub-occultation.
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