Tonight, Dwarf Planet Makemake Looks Brighter Thanks to Solar Opposition

KOMPAS.com – Solar Opposition Would like will decorate the sky starting tonight, Saturday (27/3/2021) until the next day, Sunday (28/3/2021).

National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (EIGHT) mentioned that Makemake will experience solar oppo on March 27 at 21.47 WIB with a distance of 51.71 sa (astronomical units) or about 7.74 billion kilometers and is located in the Coma Berenices constellation.

Solar opposition is a configuration in which the object is on the opposite side of the Sun, as during the Full Moon phase.

This configuration makes Makemake appear brighter when observed from Earth, because it is closer to Earth. The maximum brightness is +17.15.

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Despite this, Makemake is far enough from Earth that it only looks like a speck of a star and can only be observed using telescopes such as Hubble.

This Makemake appearance will end at 05.00 local time in the northwest.

For information, the solar Makemaker opposition occurs every 366-367 days.

Planet Katai Makemake

As reported by the official NASA website, Makemake was first discovered on March 31, 2005 by a team of astronomers, namely ME Brown, CA Trujillo and D. Rabinowitz at the Palomar Observatory.

Before it was officially confirmed, this one celestial body was named 2005 FY9.

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Meanwhile, “Makemake” is taken from the name of the fertility god Rapanui from Easter Island.

Researcher from the LAPAN Space Science Research Center, Andi Pangerang, said that when it was first discovered, Makemake did not have a satellite.

“However, since April 2015, Makemake is known to have a satellite called MK2 or S / 2015 (136472) 1 which was photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope (NASA),” he explained.

Makemake itself is a transneptune dwarf planet in the Solar System located at Kuiper belt.

The Kuiper Belt is a realm filled with thousands of miniatus of ice and rocky worlds, which formed in the early history of the solar system about 4.5 billion years ago.

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This dwarf (dwarf) planet is about three-quarters of Pluto’s size and orbits the Sun for 306 days.

To note, the very low average temperature of around 30 K on the planet suggests that the Makemake layer is composed of methane, ethane and possibly nitrogen ice.

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