Makemake

A bright, reddish dwarf planet with a charcoal-dark moon in the Kuiper Belt

With a giggle and grin, Makemake appears,
Dancing through space with no atmosphere fears.From Hugo's Journey Through Space

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Key facts

Diameter: About 889 miles / 1,430 km (radius about 715 km), roughly 60% of Pluto's
Distance from the Sun: About 45.8 AU on average (about 4,250 million miles / 6,847 million km)
One orbit: About 305 Earth years
One day (rotation): About 22.8 hours
Average temperature: About -240 °C (30 to 40 K)
Known moons: 1 (as of September 2026)
Named after: Makemake, creator god of the Rapa Nui people of Easter Island
Discovered: 31 March 2005 by Michael Brown, Chad Trujillo and David Rabinowitz at Palomar Observatory
Surface: Frozen methane and ethane with reddish tholins; highly reflective
Light travel time from the Sun: About 6 hours 20 minutes
Visited by: No spacecraft; studied by Hubble and the James Webb Space Telescope

About Makemake

Makemake is a small, icy world. It is a dwarf planet. It lives far, far from the Sun. The Sun looks like a tiny star there. Makemake is very cold and dark. Its ice is made of frozen methane. That makes it look reddish-brown. Makemake has one small moon. The moon is as dark as coal. Makemake is round, like a ball. A year there lasts about 300 Earth years. Makemake is named after a god. People on Easter Island told his story. Can you say Makemake? It sounds like mah-kay mah-kay.

Makemake is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt, beyond Neptune. It is about 1,430 km across, roughly two-thirds the size of Pluto. Its own gravity has pulled it into a slightly squashed sphere. Makemake takes about 305 Earth years to complete one orbit of the Sun.

Sunlight takes more than six hours to reach it. The dwarf planet rotates once every 22 and a half hours. That means a day there is only a little shorter than ours. Its surface is covered with frozen methane and ethane, giving it a reddish-brown colour.

It reflects sunlight so well that it is the second-brightest Kuiper Belt object. Temperatures there are around minus 240 degrees Celsius, bitterly cold. In 2015 the Hubble Space Telescope found a tiny moon orbiting Makemake. The moon is about 160 km wide and as dark as charcoal.

It still has no official name, so astronomers call it MK 2. Makemake was discovered in 2005 by Michael Brown and his team at Palomar Observatory. Its name comes from the creator god of the Rapa Nui people. No spacecraft has ever visited Makemake, so everything we know comes from telescopes.

Makemake is one of the five dwarf planets recognised by the International Astronomical Union and, after Pluto, the second-brightest object in the Kuiper Belt as seen from Earth. It was discovered on 31 March 2005 by Michael Brown, Chad Trujillo and David Rabinowitz at Palomar Observatory, California, and carried the provisional designation 2005 FY9 before being named for the creator god of the Rapa Nui people of Easter Island. Its mean radius is about 715 km, giving a diameter of roughly 1,430 km, about 60 per cent that of Pluto. Makemake orbits the Sun at an average distance of about 45.5 to 45.8 AU (about 6.8 billion km), swinging between roughly 38.3 AU at perihelion and 52.8 AU at aphelion on a path tilted about 29 degrees to the plane of the planets.

One orbit takes about 305 to 307 years, and sunlight takes around 6 hours 20 minutes to arrive. Its rotation period is about 22.8 hours. The surface is dominated by frozen methane, with ethane, ethylene and acetylene and reddish tholins produced by sunlight acting on those ices; the methane grains appear unusually large, around 1 cm across. The surface is highly reflective, and the temperature is only 30 to 40 K (about minus 240 degrees Celsius).

A stellar occultation in 2011 showed no substantial global atmosphere above a few nanobars, so Makemake is often said to be airless. That statement needs qualifying: in 2025 the James Webb Space Telescope detected fluorescing methane gas, implying a tenuous exosphere of perhaps 10 picobars, and excess mid-infrared emission hinting at a warm spot of about 150 K with an equivalent radius of about 10 km, possibly a sign of cryovolcanic activity. Both results are provisional. Makemake has one known moon as of August 2026.

Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 imaged it in April 2015 (announced 26 April 2016) in observations led by Alex Parker and Marc Buie. Designated S/2015 (136472) 1 and nicknamed MK 2, it is about 160 km across, orbits about 21,000 km from Makemake with a period of at least 12 days, and is more than 1,300 times fainter than its primary. Despite the nickname, it remains formally unnamed. No spacecraft has visited Makemake; all knowledge comes from ground-based telescopes, Hubble and Webb.

Did you know?

Makemake's moon is as dark as charcoal, more than 1,300 times fainter than Makemake, which is one of the brightest objects in the Kuiper Belt.
The frozen methane on Makemake forms grains about 1 cm across, far larger than the fine frost found on most icy worlds.
In 2025 the James Webb Space Telescope found hints of a warm spot on Makemake at about 150 K, perhaps a sign of ice volcanoes.

Moons of Makemake

Makemake has 1 known moon as of September 2026. Here it is. How many moons does Makemake have?

MK2 (S/2015 (136472) 1)

Questions children ask

How do you say Makemake?

It is pronounced mah-kay-mah-kay, with four syllables. The name comes from the Rapa Nui people of Easter Island, who told stories of Makemake as the creator of humanity and the god of fertility.

Does Makemake have any moons?

Yes, one, as of August 2026. The Hubble Space Telescope spotted it in April 2015. It is about 160 km wide and extremely dark. Its official label is S/2015 (136472) 1, but astronomers nickname it MK 2 because it has not yet been given a proper name.

Why is Makemake reddish-brown?

Its surface is covered in frozen methane and ethane. Over millions of years, sunlight breaks these ices apart and joins the pieces into dark reddish chemicals called tholins, which tint the bright ice a reddish-brown colour rather like Pluto.

Has any spacecraft been to Makemake?

No. Makemake is more than 45 times farther from the Sun than Earth, and no mission has flown there. Everything we know comes from telescopes on Earth, the Hubble Space Telescope and, since 2025, the James Webb Space Telescope, which found hints of methane gas and a warm spot.

Quick quiz

Three questions for space cadets. Nothing is recorded.

Where in the solar system is Makemake found?
About how long does Makemake take to orbit the Sun once?
What is Makemake's moon like?

Where next?

Pluto

Haumea

Eris

Written by Anthony (A.Z. Storyworks). Facts checked against NASA Science and JPL, September 2026. Moon counts as of September 2026.

Sources