Planet
Makemake
Dwarf planet
Dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt
Photo: NASA, ESA, and A. Parker and M. Buie (Southwest Research Institute) · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Makemake is a dwarf planet orbiting the Sun in the Kuiper belt, a disc of icy bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the fourth largest dwarf planet and trans-Neptunian object in the Solar System, having a diameter 60% that of Pluto. It was discovered on March 31, 2005, by American astronomers Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David Rabinowitz at Palomar Observatory. As one of the largest outer Solar System objects found by this team, the discovery of Makemake contributed to the reclassification of Pluto as a dwarf planet in 2006.
Description from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Key facts
Distance
Outer solar system
Mean radius
717 km
Orbital period
308 years
Discovered
2005 · Michael E. Brown
