Maureen is participating in the Rio Hondo Writer’s Workshop this week, stuck in a condo in the Sangre de Cristo Moutains with a bunch of other writers, eating really good food and reading really good stories (I’m guessin’.) Hopefully she’ll give us twice as much McQy goodness next week.

Okay, so possibly all you guys knew about this and nobody told me, but this is just bizarre.

This is representation of 2003 EL61, an astronomical object that has a cross section much like a m&m (not the peanut kind). Only instead of a hard-candy-shell, we’re talking ice on the outside, and instead of the chocolaty goodness the inside is, well, rock.

As you can plainly see the object is not spherical but this object (not counting moons like our own or Gannymede or Titon) is the 12th largest body in our solar system. In fact, it has two moons of its own.

On its long axis it’s around 1400 miles long, about the diameter of Pluto though its mass is only about a third. And it spins every 4 hours.

It’s ranges between 35 and 51 AU from the Sun, currently near perihelion at 50 AU. That means the solar light that hits it has been travelling for approximately 6 hours and 40 minutes.

2003 EL61 has yet to get a formal name from the International Astronomical Union but it’s nickname is “Santa” and its two moons are known as “Rudolf” and “Blitzen.”