So first, there’s a dwarf planet called Makemake. And now, says Space.com, Hubble found out that it has a moon:
Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have discovered a moon orbiting Makemake, which is the second-brightest object in the distant Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune. (Pluto is the brightest of these bodies.)
The newfound satellite — the first ever spotted around Makemake — is 1,300 times fainter than the dwarf planet and is thought to be about 100 miles (160 kilometers) in diameter, researchers said. The moon was spotted 13,000 miles (20,900 km) from the surface of Makemake, which itself is 870 miles (1,400 km) wide.
…[F]urther observations of the moon — which has been provisionally named S/2015 (136472) 1, and nicknamed MK 2 — should allow astronomers to calculate the density of Makemake, which should tell them if the dwarf planet and Pluto are made of similar stuff.
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Additional Hubble observations should also reveal the shape of MK 2’s orbit around Makemake. If the orbit is tightly circular, the moon was probably created by a long-ago giant impact, just like the five satellites in the Pluto system were, researchers said. A looping, elliptical orbit, on the other hand, would suggest that MK 2 was once a free-flying Kuiper Belt object that Makemake captured.
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Makemake is one of five objects officially recognized as a dwarf planet by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The others are the Kuiper Belt denizens Pluto, Eris and Haumea, and Ceres, which lies in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.