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When information technology comes to planets and moons these days, all the attention goes exoplanets, or those orbiting conflicting stars. Some in the scientific customs are yet trying to do an exhaustive search of our own solar organization, however, especially in the footling-known area beyond Neptune. This week, NASA announced a new discovery in that effort to itemize local wanderers: a new moon they've nicknamed MK ii.

The "MK" in the name refers to the moon'due south parent, Makemake, a dwarf planet in the area of our solar system beyond Neptune, called the Kuiper belt. Makemake was the king of the and then-called "trans-Neptunian objects" until scientists downgraded Pluto and made it the biggest and brightest body in the outer solar system. Makemake is about two-thirds Pluto's size, merely otherwise quite like. Both are covered in frozen methyl hydride, both orbit far from the Sun, and, plain, both take 1 or multiple moons.

Oh, and Makemake is pronounced either "maKI-maKI" or "ma-KAY-ma-KAY," depending on who you inquire.

The moon was discovered in a search of the surface area carried out by Hubble telescope, revealing the orbital and surface characteristics of MK 2, just leaving its density and internal construction unknown. Past illuminating the round path of MK 2 around Makemake, Hubble has shown that it was nigh likely formed past a collision with between Makemake and another Kuiper belt object, in the early history of the solar organization. This is as opposed to the model in which information technology simply fell into orbit effectually Makemake as it passed.

makemake moon 2

A Hubble image of MK 2. Credit: NASA

Previous studies of Makemake had puzzled over the odd pattern of luminosity on its surface, but the presence of a moon, with its transits and moving shadow, could easily explain that.

Team leader Marc Buie said that this discovery, and the inevitable later investigation into the moon's physical characteristics, will permit a new era of "comparative planetology in the outer solar organisation." Right now, understanding of the Kuiper belt comes from detailed study of but a few major objects, which doesn't do much to illuminate the overall population, and so every new object has an inflated level of importance. Even with but this discovery, scientists tin can say that moons are likely quite common in the Kuiper belt, and that has implications for the likely level of crowding in that area a couple of billion years ago.

makemake moon 3

These half-dozen successive shots of Makemake showed a previously unknown object in its vicinity.

MK 2 itself differs from Makemake in that it is "charcoal black," where its parent is snowfall white. Scientists believe this may simply exist due to its size, and that it may be also modest to gravitationally hold onto such a low-cal surface material. This makes it far more typical for Kuiper belt objects, and seems to invite questioning about exactly what mass threshold could concur a surface powder — likely as a function of surface temperature and rotational speed.

Being then dark, MK two was previously impossible to detect, as the moon's weak point was easily washed out by the reflection from its surface. It took Hubble's specialized equipment to look into such a brilliant spot and detect an all-new, jet black moon nearby.

NASA's New Horizons is currently on its style to perform a number of Kuiper belt flybys — then hopefully nosotros'll become to learn more about MK two over the side by side couple of years.