Solar system's 3rd plutoid named Makemake

BEIJING, July 21 (Xinhuanet) -- A dwarf planet
orbiting outside Neptune has been designated the third plutoid in the solar
system and named Makemake, the International Astronomical Union said on
Saturday.

The red methane-covered dwarf planet formerly known
as 2005 FY9 or "Easterbunny" is named after a Polynesian creator of humanity and
god of fertility.

Just last month the IAU, which names planets and
other heavenly bodies, decided to create a new class of sub-planets called
plutoids.

Pluto, demoted from planet status, and Eris are the
other two plutoids. A fourth dwarf planet named Ceres has been excluded from the
plutoid club because it orbits in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Makemake is just slightly smaller and dimmer than
Pluto and was only discovered in 2005.

"The orbit is not particularly strange, but the
object itself is big, probably about two-thirds the size of Pluto," said Mike
Brown of the California Institute of Technology, who discovered and named
Makemake (pronounced MAH-keh MAH-keh).

It was the discovery of these trans-Neptunian objects
that led the IAU to re-designate just what it meant to be a planet.

Brown said the name came to him when he was looking
for a mythological god and thought of the South Pacific's Easter Island.
Makemake was the chief god among people who settled the island.

(Agencies)