Makemake *new article* - BellaOnline Forums

Easter Island and a distant dwarf planet â€“ what do they have in common? The answer is Makemake â€“ the creator god in the Rapa Nui mythology of Easter Island. How did his name come to be given to a small frozen body seven billion kilometers (four billion miles) from the Sun?

Makemake

This diagram represents Makemake's orbit in blue. The white ellipse in the middle is Neptune's orbit which, like the other planets, is in the plane of the ecliptic. You can see how steeply tilted Makemake's orbit is to the ecliptic.

Orbits of two other dwarf planets are there too, Haumea in green and Pluto in red. When the dwarf planet's orbit is above the ecliptic the color is lighter than when it's below the ecliptic. The "Q" shows the aphelion (when the dwarf planet is farthest away from the Sun) and the "q" shows the perihelion (when the dwarf planet is closest to the Sun).

Here's a comparison of the brightest known trans-Neptunian objects.

Quote:

Pluto, Eris, Makemake, Haumea, Sedna, 2007 OR10, Quaoar, and Orcus. Six of these TNOs are known to have moon(s). 2007 OR10 and Quaoar are currently estimated to be larger than Sedna. 2002 MS4 is, to within uncertainty, estimated to be larger than Orcus, but are less bright due to lower albedos. Since Quaoar and Orcus have moons, it is known that Quaoar is much more massive than Orcus. The top 4 are IAU-accepted dwarf planets while the bottom 4 are dwarf-planet candidates that are accepted as dwarf planets by several astronomers.

A reminder about how Makemake is pronounced in this cute cartoon.