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Astronomers using the Hubble
Space Telescope just discovered

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a moon orbiting dwarf planet
Makemake. Makemake is in a

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region beyond the orbit of
Neptune called the Kuiper Belt.

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Several of the largest Kuiper
Belt Objects are known to have

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moons, and as of April 2016,
that now includes Makemake, the

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second brightest and third
largest known object past the

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orbit of Neptune. Using
observations taken in 2015 with

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Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3, a
team of astronomers from the

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Southwest Research Institute,
Lowell Observatory, and NASA's

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Goddard Space Flight Center
estimate this moon to be

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approximately 100 miles in
diameter. Hubble will need to

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take further observations to see
exactly how frequently this moon

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orbits Makemake. Astronomers
hope to use this orbiting moon

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to better estimate Makemake's
mass, which will give us a

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better idea of the dwarf
planet's overall density and

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thus its bulk composition. The
Hubble Space Telescope has been

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instrumental in the study of
objects in the outer solar

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system. Hubble also discovered
four of the five moons orbiting

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Pluto, visited by NASA's New
Horizons spacecraft last July.

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