Makemake Moon...

Dwarf planet Makemake and its newly discovered moon.
The newly discovered moon, MK 2, found in Hubble data orbiting Makemake.
NASA, ESA, A. Parke

Topics: Astronomy, NASA, Planetary Science, Space Exploration, Spaceflight

Once a lonely ice block, now it seems the dwarf planet may have a close-in companion.

In 2005, Caltech astronomers Mike Brown and Chad Trujillo discovered dwarf planet Makemake, currently believed to be the third largest object in the Kuiper Belt after Pluto and Eris. But at the time, astronomers believed it was alone out there on its long path around the Sun. But new data from the Hubble Space Telescope reveal a moon around the tiny world, and offer a little explanation as to where it was hiding.

“The satellite that we found was not that faint and not that close to Makemake,” says Alex Parker, principal investigator of the research and a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute. “It popped right out of the data when we looked.”

It turns out it was always there. But the newly found object, provisionally called MK 2, orbits Makemake nearly edge-on from our point of view, meaning most of the time it’s obscured by the comparatively bright dwarf planet. Makemake is 886 miles (1,434 km) in diameter, while the new object appears to be only 100 miles (161 Km). Current scenarios also paint it as a dark companion compared to bright Makemake.

Astronomy:
Astronomers Find a Moon Hiding Around Makemake in Hubble Data, John Wenz