Weywot is thought to play a role in maintaining Quaoar's outer ring by gravitationally influencing it in an orbital resonance.
[1][10] Consecutive images from that date showed that Weywot appeared stationary relative to Quaoar and was visibly separated at an angular distance of 0.35 arcseconds.
[14] The name of Weywot was officially announced by the Minor Planet Center in a notice published on 4 October 2009.
[4]: 134 Weywot orbits Quaoar at an average distance of 13,300 km (8,300 mi) and takes 12.4 days to complete one revolution.
[6]: 362 Of these scenarios, Weywot most likely formed as a fragment of Quaoar that was ejected into an initially eccentric orbit by a major impact event billions of years ago.
[6]: 362 [16] The trans-Neptunian dwarf planet 225088 Gonggong hosts a similarly eccentric satellite named Xiangliu, and it is inferred to have formed and evolved in the same way as Weywot.
[7]: 6 It is unknown which of these two resonances plays a more dominant role in maintaining the ring, as the underlying parameters necessary to calculate their effects are poorly known.
[8] Occultations by Weywot have been observed previously on 4 August 2019, 11 June 2022, and 26 May 2023, which all gave similar diameter estimates of about 170 km (110 mi).