Location of Hygiea in the Solar System

This animation shows where Hygiea’s orbit is in our Solar System. Like Ceres, Hygiea is in the main asteroid belt, which is located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. While Hygiea was thought to be an asteroid, new observations with the SPHERE instrument on the VLT have revealed that Hygiea is spherical in shape, meaning it could be reclassified as a dwarf planet. This would make it the smallest dwarf planet yet in our Solar System, after Ceres.