Peering to the outskirts¹ of our solar system, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has spotted² a small, dark moon orbiting Makemake, the second brightest icy dwarf³ planet -- after Pluto⁴ -- in the Kuiper Belt. The moon -- provisionally designated S/2015 (136472) 1 and nicknamed MK 2 -- is more than 1,300 times fainter than Makemake. MK 2 was seen approximately 13,000 miles from the dwarf planet, and its diameter is estimated to be 100 miles across. Makemake is 870 miles wide. The dwarf planet, discovered in 2005, is named for a creation deity⁵ of the Rapa Nui people of Easter Island.

 

The Kuiper Belt is a vast reservoir of leftover⁶ frozen material from the construction of our solar system 4.5 billion years ago and home to several dwarf planets. Some of these worlds have known satellites, but this is the first discovery of a companion object to Makemake. Makemake is one of five dwarf planets recognized by the International Astronomical⁷ Union.

 

The observations were made in April 2015 with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3. Hubble's unique ability to see faint objects near bright ones, together with its sharp resolution, allowed astronomers⁸ to pluck out the moon from Makemake's glare. The discovery was announced today in a Minor⁹ Planet Electronic Circular.

 

The observing team used the same Hubble technique to observe the moon as they did for finding the small satellites of Pluto in 2005, 2011, and 2012. Several previous searches around Makemake had turned up empty. "Our preliminary estimates show that the moon's orbit seems to be edge-on, and that means that often when you look at the system you are going to miss the moon because it gets lost in the bright glare of Makemake," said Alex Parker of Southwest Research Institute, Boulder¹⁰, Colorado, who led the image analysis for the observations.

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