Distant Dwarf Planet Designated Third 'Plutoid' in Solar System

[GrnMarvl14]

Source.

A dwarf planet circling the sun out beyond the orbit of Neptune has been rechristened Makemake after a Polynesian god and designated the third of the solar system's new class of plutoids, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) announced Saturday.

Makemake is a small, red-tinged world that ranks among the largest objects in the outer solar system.

But it is still smaller and dimmer than the already demoted dwarf planet Pluto, which astronomers reclassified as a plutoid last month.

Astronomers discovered Makemake (pronounced MAH-keh MAH-keh), the fourth dwarf planet so far, in 2005 and believe its surface is covered by a layer of frozen methane.

It is bright enough to be seen by a high-end amateur telescope, the IAU said.

"The orbit is not particularly strange, but the object itself is big," said astronomer Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., who led the team that discovered Makemake. "Probably about two-thirds the size of Pluto."

Pluto, Makemake and a third object — officially dubbed Eris — are all classified as plutoids as well as dwarf planets.

The solar system's largest asteroid, Ceres, is also a dwarf planet, but not in the plutoid class. That's because its orbit, which falls in the belt of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter, is smaller than that of the more distant Neptune.

Originally designated 2005 FY9, the object was nicknamed "Easter Bunny" by its discoverers before officially being named Makemake after the Easter Island creator of humanity and god of fertility, the IAU said.

"We consider the naming of objects in the solar system very carefully," said Brown.

Makemake's methane ice-rich surface, while fascinating, did not easily relate to Earthly mythology, he added.

But the small dwarf planet, like Eris and the object 2003 EL61 ("Santa") also spotted by Brown and his team, was found while his wife was pregnant with their daughter.

It was the discovery of those three objects that led to Pluto's drop from full planet to dwarf planet in 2006.

[Three other large, distant bodies found in recent years by Brown and his colleagues — Sedna, Quaoar and Orcus — are still awaiting classification.]

Brown was researching the mythology of Rapa Nui, or Easter Island, in the South Pacific for prospective names when he learned of the creator and fertility god Makemake.

"I am partial to fertility gods," Brown said, recalling the discovery of Makemake, Eris and 2003 EL61. "I have the distinct memory of feeling this fertile abundance pouring out of the entire Universe. Makemake was part of that."

So...how many planet or planet-like objects do we have now? 11? 12? 72?

 

[Every Breaking Wave]

I've lost count.

 

[Rayne]

42.

Must we continue to count up to something we already know the answer to?

 

[ShinyFlareon]

42.

Must we continue to count up to something we already know the answer to?

0.o 42? Seriously? That's it! That is the Ultimate Answer, and now we have found the Ultimate Question: how many planet-like objects are in the Earth's Solar System?

^_^;;; I've read The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy a few too many times...

On a more serious note, this is getting ridiculous. Pluto is a freaking PLANET, imo -- and all astronomers are doing is further complicating things by introducing this new class of plutoids. The discovery itself is interesting, don't get me wrong.

Makes me wonder, though, if there's another reason this guy's partial to fertility gods, since he discovered this object while his wife was pregnant ^_~

 

[Every Breaking Wave]

When I was your age, Pluto was a planet.

All hilarity aside, this is still an interesting development. With both Voyager probes reaching the edges of the solar system, it begs the question of what else may be out there that remains undiscovered, whether it be planets, dwarf planets, wormholes, etc.

In another ten years, we may have to rethink the definition of both planets and dwarf planets.

 

[Rayne]

Well, in the traditional sense, there will be many who still think Pluto is a planet. Yeah, genereations grew up learning Pluto was a planet through 2006. It was that magical age when we were still making large discoveries about our own celestial neighborhood and passing anything along as gold. But times have changed and the next generation will be poised into thinking Pluto is just another in a long line of dwarves.

Since then we've gone far beyond the Kuiper belt and have discovered that there are potentially untold millions of planetoid sub-planets and planet fragments. After finding a couple of these good sized plutoids, ice rocks the size of the moon aren't much of a surprise anymore. This bount of knowledge quickly broke what we once held true and modes of thought and organization were simply reformed by the new facts. Happens all the time.

Frankly, I'm satisfied with the Planet-Subplanet system setting apart the big leaguers from the minors. With giant fields of ice debris out there, we could be in for discovering many, many more. We were lucky enough to find these outer bodies when we did since some of them are approaching, or have just passed their perihelion, their closest that their orbit takes them to the sun. Some of these larger objects may still be sitting out there, we just need them to get a bit closer before we can nab them.

The new category works out, thus giving Pluto some companions to it's new class. We have the four rocky inner planets, four gas giants and now the far outer Plutoids which inherently become dwarf planets.

This was the safe choice since scientists knew that tacking on planets would make the learning complicated, adding to something that didn't seem so uniform with the first 8 planets. Separating subplanets altogether as dwarfs enables limitless discoveries for any body with significant mass that orbits the sun to be considered important as far as the human scale of the solar system is concerned.