Makemake: The Distant Red World

Makemake is a dwarf planet located in the Kuiper Belt, a region of icy bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the second-brightest object in the Kuiper Belt as seen from Earth, after Pluto.

With a diameter of approximately 1,430 km, Makemake is about two-thirds the size of Pluto. It takes about 305 Earth years to complete one orbit around the Sun.

Makemake is named after the creator god in the mythology of the Rapa Nui people of Easter Island. The name reflects its discovery around Easter time in 2005.

Makemake was discovered on March 31, 2005, by a team led by Michael E. Brown at the Palomar Observatory in California. The discovery was announced to the public on July 29, 2005.

Initially designated as 2005 FY9, the object was later given the minor planet number 136472. In July 2008, it was officially named Makemake by the International Astronomical Union.

The name Makemake comes from the mythology of the Rapa Nui people of Easter Island, where Makemake is the creator of humanity and the god of fertility. The name was chosen partly because the discovery was made just after Easter.

Makemake has a distinctly reddish color in visible light, similar to Pluto but slightly less red. This coloration is one of its most distinctive features.

The red color is believed to be caused by tholins - complex organic molecules that form when methane is exposed to solar ultraviolet radiation. These tholins give Makemake its characteristic reddish-brown appearance.

Spectroscopic studies have shown that Makemake's surface is covered with large grains of methane ice, along with possible traces of nitrogen and ethane ice. The methane on the surface appears to be in its pure form rather than dissolved in nitrogen as on Pluto.

Makemake orbits the Sun at an average distance of 45.8 AU, taking about 305 Earth years to complete one orbit. Its orbit is moderately eccentric and inclined relative to the plane of the solar system.

Makemake has one known moon, designated S/2015 (136472) 1 and nicknamed MK2. This small moon was discovered in 2016 by the Hubble Space Telescope and is estimated to be about 175 km in diameter.

Observations suggest that Makemake has a very low average density of about 1.7 g/cm³, indicating it is composed largely of ices with only a small rocky core.

Makemake likely has a very thin, transient atmosphere that forms when the dwarf planet is closest to the Sun in its orbit. As it moves away from the Sun, this atmosphere likely freezes and collapses back onto the surface.

Observations during a stellar occultation in 2011 provided evidence for this temporary atmosphere. The data suggested that if Makemake has an atmosphere, it must be highly tenuous, with a surface pressure less than 1 billionth of Earth's atmospheric pressure.

The primary component of Makemake's potential atmosphere is likely methane gas, which sublimes from the surface ice when temperatures increase during the dwarf planet's closest approach to the Sun.