Key facts
- Category
- Asteroids
- Object class
- Dwarf-planet candidate
- Mass
- ~84 quadrillion metric tons
- Scale fact
- 434 kmmean diameter
- Estimated age
- ~4.5 billion years
- Composition
- Carbonaceous rock and ice
10 Hygiea
434 kmmean diameter
Explore 10 Hygiea to scaleVisual creditVLT 2019 / ESO / P. Vernazza et al. / MISTRAL algorithm (ONERA/CNRS) / CC BY 4.0Source: Wikimedia Commons
Details
10 Hygiea is the fourth-largest object in the asteroid belt. VLT observations published in 2019 showed it to be nearly spherical, suggesting that it could meet the physical roundness criterion for dwarf-planet status; it remains a dwarf-planet candidate.
SPHERE images from ESO’s Very Large Telescope resolved Hygiea as a nearly spherical body about 430 kilometers across. That supplies the strongest evidence that it meets the roundness criterion for dwarf-planet status, although the IAU has not reclassified it. The images show no large impact basin, and simulations suggest that Hygiea reassembled after the disruptive collision that created its asteroid family.
Links
- Wikipedia
- 10 Hygiea on Wikipedia
Size neighbors
Objects near 10 Hygiea on the scale
Shared physical scale
438km
Sources
References for 10 Hygiea
Measurements and descriptive context are compiled by the Scale of Space team from the references below. If you find an error, please let us know.
- 10 Hygiea — Wikipedia
- Visual reference: Wikimedia Commons (VLT 2019 / ESO / P. Vernazza et al. / MISTRAL algorithm (ONERA/CNRS), CC BY 4.0)
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About
Scale of Space is a scroll-based journey through the universe, placing objects on a single logarithmic scale so you can compare size across an unbroken range.
Guides explain selected parts of that range, while focused views filter the objects by subject.