April 27, 2016

The dwarf planet Makemake seen by the Hubble Space Telescope with its moon indicated by the arrow (Image NASA, ESA, and A. Parker and M. Buie (SwRI))

The Hubble Space Telescope has identified a moon of the dwarf planet Makemake. For the moment it was simply designated S/2015 (136472) and nicknamed MK2 and it’s a small moon with an estimated diameter of about 160 kilometers (about 100 miles). The discovery came from observations made in April 2015 using the Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 instrument.