Quaoar — dwarf planet, shown live in Cosmoscope, a real-time 3D map of the universe.
A Kuiper Belt world circled by a ring so far out that the debris should have coalesced into a moon — but hasn’t. It is rewriting the textbook rules for where rings can survive.
Cosmoscope puts Quaoar at its true position in the solar system, computed from JPL-derived ephemeris and updated continuously. Open the live 3D view to see, in real time, how far Quaoar is from the Sun and from Earth right now, how many minutes or hours light takes to cross that gap, and how fast it is moving along its orbit. Scrub the timeline to place Quaoar where it was on any past date, or where it will be years from now.