Makemake

Makemake lies in the Kuiper Belt, a region outside of Neptune's orbit, along with its fellow dwarf planets Pluto, Eris and Haumea. Makemake is the second brightest object in the Kuiper Belt as seen from Earth, with Pluto being the brightest. It takes about 305 Earth days for Makemake to complete one orbit around the Sun.

Makemake holds an important place in astronomy, as it was one of the objects in the solar system that prompted the Astronomical Unit to reconsider the definition of a dwarf planet.

Makemake was named after the Rapanui god of fertility.

Discovery
Makemake was discovered at the Palomar Observatory on March 31st, 2005 by M.E. Brown, C.A. Trujillo and D. Rabinowitz.

Size and Distance
Makemake is 1/9 the radius of Earth, with its radius of 444 miles (715 kilometres). Makemake would be the size of a mustard seed if Earth were a nickel.

Makemake is 45.8 astronomical units away from the Sun, with an average distance of 4,253,000,000 miles (6,847,000,000 kilometres). One astronomical unit (abbreviated as 'AU') is the equal distance from the Sun to Earth. It takes sunlight 6 hours and 20 minutes to travel to Makemake.

Orbit and Rotation
For makemake to complete one rotation, it takes 22 and a half hours. To complete one trip around the Sun, however, Makemake would take 305 Earth days to complete one orbit. This makes its day length similar to Earth and Mars.

Formation
Makemake is a member of the Kuiper Belt, a disc-like zone beyond the orbit of Neptune. This dwarf planet is populated with thousands of miniature ice worlds, which formed 4.5 billion years ago in the early years of our solar system. These objects, which are icy and rocky, are called Kuiper Belt objects, or plutoids.

Structure
Scientists know very little about Makemake's structure.

Surface
We can't see too many details on Makemake from so far away, but we do know that it appears to have a brown-reddish colour, similar to Pluto. Scientists also detected frozen methane and ethane on Makemake. In fact, pellets of frozen methane can be as big as half an inch (1 centimetre) in diameter.

Atmosphere
Makemake may have developed a thin atmosphere, which could be composed of nitrogen.

Magnetosphere
Scientists don't know if Makemake has a magnetosphere.

Moons
Makemake has one provisional moon and one confirmed nicknamed MK2. It's more than 1,300 times fainter than Makemake. MK2 was seen about 13,000 miles from the dwarf planet and has an estimated radius of 50 miles (80 kilometres).

Rings
There isn't a ring system around Makemake.

Human Life
Makemake's very cold temperatures make human life very unlikely to adapt to this dwarf planet.