Hubble Discovers Moon Orbiting the Dwarf Planet Makemake

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/hubble-discovers-moon-orbiting-the-dwarf-planet-makemake

by japaget • 10 years ago

122 33 10 years ago

nasa.gov

Mizza• 10 years ago

Getting an SSL error on a NASA page.. Weird..

HTTP Link: http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/hubble-discovers-mo...

throwaway_yy2Di• 10 years ago

Here's the discovery paper:

http://hubblesite.org/pubinfo/pdf/2016/18/pdf.pdf

asimuvPR• 10 years ago

Thanks for the link to the paper. :)

syncsynchalt• 10 years ago

The two names we're floating are Makemakemake and Minimake.

jrjarrett• 10 years ago

How about Moony McMoonface? :D

narag• 10 years ago

It would be nice if there was some voting to give it a name. But... original name of Makemake was Easterbunny, so you see how names go for these things.

There's still a relation, since Makemake was a god in Easter Island.

InclinedPlane• 10 years ago

Uhhh, that's a dumb name, McDumberson.

I think the obvious answer is Make McMakemake

Eyght• 10 years ago

Princess Monomake

Natsu• 10 years ago

Makemashita.

Aelinsaar• 10 years ago

MoonyMoony?

whoopdedo• 10 years ago

CMakemake

Gradlegradle

c3534l2• 10 years ago

I don't see how they can justify that "artists impression" of a moon they know nothing about. It has no use other than to mislead.

nathancahill• 10 years ago

Dunno why you're being downvoted, we're still undoing years of misleading from artists impressions of dinosaurs.

5424582• 10 years ago

I dunno - I have a hard time getting mad about that. I mean, the "cost" of those misleading artist's impressions as found in Jurassic Park and others (which were largely in line by the best scientific estimates at the time) is a few largely harmless misconceptions that many adults carry around. Conversely, the benefit is getting millions of children and adults excited about natural history, geology, biology and science in general. Sounds like a pretty good tradeoff to me.

twinkletwinkle• 10 years ago

Because the public likes pretty pictures, and NASA needs the public to be excited about space exploration.

mholt• 10 years ago

If I didn't know the New Horizons photos of Pluto were real, I would have thought they were just "artists impressions" too, because the real thing was stunning.

Sure, the drawing is probably inaccurate, but the real thing is probably at least as interesting.

tvmalsv• 10 years ago

I agree. And, sometimes the "artist's impression" is fairly decent when it's done by someone with a technical background drawing (no pun intended) from actual scientific data to make educated guesses. I realize that isn't the norm, but I've seen a case of it.

unchocked• 10 years ago

Less excusable is showing a top-down view of the solar system and failing to include Makemake's orbit on it.

hoorayimhelping• 10 years ago

From the abstract: http://hubblesite.org/pubinfo/pdf/2016/18/pdf.pdf

We find that the properties of Makemake’s moon suggest that the majority of the dark material detected in the system by thermal observations may not reside on the surface of Makemake, but may instead be attributable to S/2015 (136472) 1 having a uniform dark surface. This “dark moon hypothesis” can be directly tested with future JWST observations.

justsaysmthng• 10 years ago

"artists impression" of a moon they know nothing about.

And there's a big probability that they never will.

Still I like to look at an imaginary drawing of something rather than at nothing.

It makes absolutely no difference since nobody on this Earth will get to see the real thing anyway.

At least not in this lifetime.

kchoudhu• 10 years ago

I remember when Pluto looked like that as well.

nxzero• 10 years ago

MooMoo feels like the name for Makemake's moon.

urvader• 10 years ago

Let's name it Moon McMoonface

dovdov• 10 years ago

How about Moonmoon? :)

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/moon-moon

Hubble Discovers Moon Orbiting the Dwarf Planet Makemake

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