UK team help show for the first time, dwarf planet Makemake lacks atmosphere | WPN World People News

A high speed camera designed and built in the UK has enabled astronomers to show for the first time, that the dwarf planet ‘Makemake’ is not surrounded by a significant atmosphere as had been expected by some astronomers. The observation was made by scientists as Makemake – classified as a dwarf planet in the same way as Pluto - drifted in front of a distant star for just one minute. The availability of a high speed camera, in ULTRACAM, mounted on the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO’s) Very Large Telescope, as well as two other ESO telescopes, was crucial to the result.

Artist's impression of the surface of the dwarf planet Makemake.

The scientists, led by José Luis Ortiz (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, CSIC, Spain), also measured Makemake’s density for the first time. They combined multiple observations using ULTRACAM, designed and built by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC’s) UK Astronomy Technology Centre and the Universities of Warwick and Sheffield, New Technology Telescope (NTT), and TRAPPIST (TRAnsiting Planets and PlanetesImals Small Telescope). These observations were combined with data from other small telescopes in South America, to look at Makemake as it passed in front of a distant star.

As Makemake passed in front of the star and blocked it out, the star disappeared and reappeared very abruptly, rather than fading and brightening gradually”, said José Luis Ortiz. “This means that the little dwarf planet has no significant atmosphere. It was thought that Makemake had a good chance of having developed an atmosphere — that it has no sign of one at all shows just how much we have yet to learn about these mysterious bodies. Finding out about Makemake’s properties for the first time is a big step forward in our study of the select club of icy dwarf planets.”

Makemake is about two thirds of the size of Pluto, and travels around the Sun in a distant path that lies beyond that of Pluto but closer to the Sun than Eris, the most massive known dwarf planet in the Solar System. Its lack of moons and its great distance from us make it difficult to study, and what little we do know about the body is only approximate. The team’s new observations add much more detail to our view of Makemake — determining its size more accurately, putting constraints on a possible atmosphere and estimating the dwarf planet’s density for the first time.

It was only possible to observe Makemake in such detail because of it passing in front of a star — an event known as a stellar occultation. These rare opportunities are allowing astronomers for the first time to find out a great deal about the sometimes tenuous and delicate atmospheres around these distant, but important, members of the Solar system, providing very accurate information about their their properties.

Source: Science and Technology Facilities Council