Makemake-ing a New Dwarf Planet
Plutoids, the term given to dwarf planets like Pluto which sit beyond the orbit of Neptune, have just recently received a new addition to the family, Makemake.
Makemake, (pronounced MAH-kee MAH-kee) the Polynesian god of fertility, was the name given to the object after it was discovered by a team from the California Institute of Technology led by Mike Brown on Easter 2005. Makemake is roughly 60% the size of Pluto, and has a reddish tinge around it.
The distinction between plutoids and normal dwarf planets was created to distinguish those lying outside of Neptune’s orbit from Ceres, which sits between Mars and Jupiter. The discovery of another dwarf planet, Eris, was what prompted the International Astronomical Union to demote Pluto from its status as a planet and create a special category of plutoids.
The difference between planets and dwarf planets is that there is no competing debris in the orbit of a planet, while dwarf planets have not yet swept their orbits clean of competing debris such as asteroids. The IAU is expecting even more similar discoveries in the future even as satellite, telescope and sky scanning technologies improve.
