Gonggong (formally 225088 Gonggong) is a dwarf planet, a member of the scattered disc beyond Neptune. It has a highly eccentric and inclined orbit during which it ranges from 34–101 astronomical units from the Sun. As of 2019, its distance from the Sun is 88 AU, and it is the sixth-farthest known Solar System object. Gonggong is in a 3:10 orbital resonance with Neptune, in which it completes three orbits around the Sun for every ten orbits completed by Neptune. Gonggong was discovered in July 2007 by American astronomers Megan Schwamb, Michael Brown, and David Rabinowitz at the Palomar Observatory, and the discovery was announced in January 2009.

At approximately 1,230 km (760 mi) in diameter, Gonggong is the size of Pluto's moon Charon, and is the fifth-largest known trans-Neptunian object. It may be sufficiently massive to be plastic under its own gravity and therefore a dwarf planet. Gonggong's large mass makes retention of a tenuous atmosphere of methane just possible, though such an atmosphere would slowly escape into space. The object is named after Gònggōng, a Chinese water god responsible for chaos, floods and the tilt of the Earth. The name was chosen by its discoverers in 2019, when they hosted an online poll for the general public to help choose a name for the object, and the name Gonggong won.

Gonggong is red, likely due to the presence of organic compounds called tholins on its surface. Water ice is also present on its surface, which hints at a brief period of cryovolcanic activity in the distant past. With a rotation period around 22 hours, Gonggong rotates slowly compared to other trans-Neptunian objects, which typically have periods less than 12 hours. The slow rotation of Gonggong may have been caused by tidal forces from its natural satellite, named Xiangliu.

If you ever want to make your own megathread, you can go here to reserve a spot! :xinternet:

Resources for Organizing your workplace/community :sabo:

Resources for Palestine :palestine-heart:

Buy coffee and learn more about the Zapatistas in Chiapas here :EZLN:

Here are some resourses on Prison Abolition :brick-police:

Foundations of Leninism :USSR:

:lenin-shining: :unity: :kropotkin-shining:

Anarchism and Other Essays :ancom:

Remember, sort by new you :LIB:

Follow the Hexbear twitter account :comrade-birdie:

THEORY; it’s good for what ails you (all kinds of tendencies inside!) :RIchard-D-Wolff:

Come listen to music with your fellow Hexbears in Cy.tube :og-hex-bear:

Queer stuff? Come talk in the queer megathread! ! :sicko-queer:

Monthly Neurodiverse Megathread and Monthly ND Venting Thread :Care-Comrade:

  • Huldra [they/them, it/its]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Oh yeah and also two more articles about how muslamic style disinformation is going to cause another terror attack here, they've really turned up the engines on this fearmongering.

    Maybe it would be helpful if instead of just shouting "islamic terror islamic terror!" over and over again you would somehow assuage the fears that refugees have about the state fucking targeting them. So far its just been blanket denials that the social services could ever misstep or racially/religiously profile parents.

    • Huldra [they/them, it/its]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Also, predicting next weeks articles.

      Theres currently a scandal where a teacher affiliated with a Christian extremist party misgendered one of her young students over a period of 8 fucking months before getting fired and fined for it, 100% I am going to have to read some fucking awful free speech spiel in these fucking accursed pages next week, how its "wrong to force teachers to use politically correct" language or something.

      • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        can't wait for an article titled

        "The Hidden Costs to our Freedom of Speech to Use People's Preferred Pronouns: if George Orwell could see today's world, he would be shocked at our schools"

        so I can put that journalist's name on a document for uhh... future purposes