Makemake

Those poor objects stuck in size between asteroids and true planets.
Post Reply
Christopher K.
Posts: 6241
Joined: October 12th, 2009, 3:28 pm
Location: Baton Rouge, LA

Makemake

Post by Christopher K. »

Today's APOD is an illustration of Makemake from a 21 November ESO press release. The release, outlining an article published in Nature the following day, concerned using an occultation of a star to determine whether the dwarf planet has an atmosphere.

Makemake was discovered in March 2005 and classified by the IAU as a dwarf planet in 2008. It has an estimated albedo of 0.74 to 0.80.

The original European Southern Observatory press release:
http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1246/

Makemake entry at NASA's Solar System site:
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/pro ... a_MakeMake
Christopher K.
Posts: 6241
Joined: October 12th, 2009, 3:28 pm
Location: Baton Rouge, LA

Re: Makemake

Post by Christopher K. »

I still wonder which would have been the best route to take--increase the number on the planet list, or (as we're doing now) increase the categories.

More information:
https://www.princeton.edu/~willman/plan ... /Makemake/
https://www.iau.org/news/pressreleases/detail/iau0806/
Christopher K.
Posts: 6241
Joined: October 12th, 2009, 3:28 pm
Location: Baton Rouge, LA

Re: Makemake

Post by Christopher K. »

Makemake is now known to have a moon, the surface of which is ~1300 times dimmer than Makemake’s. As shown by by an illustration from the Southwest Research Institute, the moon’s about 160 kilometer’s in diameter.

31 December 2022 APOD:
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap221231.html
Post Reply