Makemake has a moon too!

[Frida Space]

Hello fellow Kuiper-belt lovers! Meet the new member of the solar system's distant and frigid outskirts:

Just a few minutes ago, NASA announced the discovery of the first moon around dwarf planet, KBO and plutoid Makemake. The discovery was made from images taken by Hubble's WFC3 in April 2015. Preliminary data says the moon is some 160 km wide (8.7 times less than its parent body), 1300x dimmer than Makemake, and orbits in a roughly circular and edge-on orbit (as seen from Earth) with a period of at least 12 days. Further observations will allow better precision.

Cool things you can do with a moon:

• calculate the system's total mass and therefore put constraints on its formation and evolution scenarios (e.g., Charon's discovery made astronomers realise Pluto was 100x less massive than expected from the 1930s observations)
• generate a density profile for Makemake and compare it to Pluto's internal structure to see whether the similarities between these two worlds (both are rich in methane ice) extends beyond their frozen surfaces too
• and much more!

Quite surprisingly, S/2015 (136472) 1 (its provisional name) or MK 2 (its provisional informal name) is charcoal-black, whereas Makemake is snow white. This could explain the mysterious dark patches seen in the infrared on Makemake's surface a few years go. Preliminary speculation says the moon's gravity might not be strong enough to hold on to the ices once they've sublimated, exposing the darker, subsurface material.

Interestingly, of the four dwarf planets in the Kuiper belt (that is, all dwarf planets except for Ceres), Makemake was the only one without a known moon, obviously until now.

Edited April 26, 2016 by Frida Space

[HoloYolo]

WOW! A planet that we didn't know had a moon now does! We should call it Donedone as to correspond with Makemake.

[Robotengineer]

14 minutes ago, HoloYolo said:

WOW! A planet that we didn't know had a moon now does! We should call it Donedone as to correspond with Makemake.

Nope. DestroyDestroy or BrokeBroke.

[HoloYolo]

Just now, Robotengineer said:

Nope. DestroyDestroy or BrokeBroke.

Tweet to @NASA! The sooner the better!

[KAL 9000]

45 minutes ago, HoloYolo said:

Tweet to @NASA! The sooner the better!

#BreakBreak4MakeMake

[cubinator]

Awesome! The Kuiper belt is getting more and more interesting, weird, and diverse! It seems like every object we find there is different from every other object somehow!

And we should call this new moon Dresdres.

Or Moonmoon. Or Buildbuild. Or maybe just 'Hat'. I like Moonmoon best.

Ooh! What about 'Makemoon'?

Edited April 26, 2016 by cubinator
moon names

[Spaceception]

6 hours ago, Frida Space said:

Interestingly, of the four dwarf planets in the Kuiper belt (that is, all dwarf planets except for Ceres), Makemake was the only one without a known moon, obviously until now.

CERES HAS A MOON TOO!! IT'S CALLED DAWN!!

#CERESMATTERS

Edited April 27, 2016 by Spaceception

[cubinator]

1 hour ago, Spaceception said:

CERES HAS A MOON TOO!! IT'S CALLED DAWN!!

#CERESMATTERS

Does Dawn spawn random Nyan cats and lasers and overpost in the forum games?

*on-topic*

I wonder what Makemake and its moon are like compared to the Pluto system. I wonder how geologic activity changes with objects that are really, really far from the sun. What about objects like Sedna, which get close (read: far) to the sun for a while then spend a long time really far away (read: really really really really far away)? There is so much that we don't know about these objects way out there...

[kerbiloid]

5 hours ago, Spaceception said:

CERES HAS A MOON TOO!! IT'S CALLED DAWN!!

Breaking news: it's full metal and emits radiowaves.

P.S.
Maybe Makemake's companion is a ball of its matter thrown away in a great collision. Ice lost, rock stays.

 

Edited April 27, 2016 by kerbiloid

[Frida Space]

50 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Maybe Makemake's companion is a ball of its matter thrown away in a great collision. Ice lost, rock stays.

Either that, which would make it similar to Charon, or it's a captured KBO, probably like Triton. The hape of its orbit should tells us (circular = collision, elongated = capture)

[Spaceception]

 

[Andem]

WHUT. Anyway, I vote for the name Rongorongo to keep with the Easter Island theme.