Makemake

dwarf planet · Kuiper Belt · icy world · space discovery

Super far and cold. Makemake orbits way out in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune, in a region so cold and dark that it's almost impossible to see without powerful telescopes.

Fourth largest dwarf planet. It's smaller than our Moon but bigger than most other dwarf planets, with a width that's about 60% the size of Pluto.

Found in 2005. American astronomers Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David Rabinowitz discovered it on March 31, 2005, using the Palomar Observatory telescope.

Caused Pluto's demotion. When Makemake and other similar icy bodies were discovered, scientists realized Pluto wasn't special enough to be called a full planet, so they reclassified it as a dwarf planet too.