Makemake and the Funky Dwarf Planets Bunch
Hurrah! They've named a fourth dwarf planet! Last week Makemake (mah-keh mah-keh) was named a dwarf planet, joining that funky little bunch including Pluto, Eris and Ceres. This brings us to eight planets and four dwarf planets.
A dwarf planet is an object that orbits the Sun (that is not itself a satellite of another object), is large enough in mass to form a sphere, but has not cleared its orbit/neighbouring space of other object.
Makemake is out in the Kuiper Belt (with Pluto and Eris) with lots of other icy objects and was previously known as 2005FY9 and was nicknamed Easterbunny. It is slightly smaller that Pluto and is a reddish colour (apparently frozen methane).
News item here.
A dwarf planet is an object that orbits the Sun (that is not itself a satellite of another object), is large enough in mass to form a sphere, but has not cleared its orbit/neighbouring space of other object.
Makemake is out in the Kuiper Belt (with Pluto and Eris) with lots of other icy objects and was previously known as 2005FY9 and was nicknamed Easterbunny. It is slightly smaller that Pluto and is a reddish colour (apparently frozen methane).
News item here.
posted by Miff at
3:48 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home