A new study shows that the dwarf planet Makemake is surrounded by small amounts of methane, a gas commonly produced by humans and animals. (Image courtesy of Getty Images)
Scientists, using the vast observing power of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), have detected faint traces of fluorescent gases emanating from the dwarf planet Makemake, lurking in the outer reaches of the Solar System. This is only the second time gas has been detected on an object so far from Earth, indicating that this tiny world is far more active than we once thought.
Makemake is a nearly spherical object with a diameter of approximately 1,430 kilometers (890 miles), less than half the diameter of the Moon. It is located about 45 times farther from the Sun than Earth on average, in a region known as the Kuiper Belt—a ring of asteroids, comets, and larger icy objects like Pluto beyond the orbit of Neptune. It was discovered in 2005 and has a small moon, dubbed MK2, with a diameter of approximately 175 kilometers (110 miles).
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According to NASA, scientists have long known that Makemake's reddish-brown surface is covered in layers of methane and ethane ice, and some even believe that its cold surface may contain small granules of these chemicals, about half an inch (1 centimeter) in diameter.
However, in a new study uploaded September 8 to the preprint server arXiv and accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, researchers used JWST to take a closer look at Makemake and found that the dwarf planet also has faint concentrations of methane gas surrounding its icy surface.
Data collected by JWST clearly shows the presence of methane on the surface of Makemake.
“Webb has now shown that methane is also present in the gas phase above the surface, and this discovery makes Makemake even more interesting,” said lead study author Silvia Protopapa, a researcher at the University of Maryland and the Southwest Research Institute in Texas, in a statement. “This shows that Makemake is not a dormant remnant of the outer solar system, but a dynamic body where methane ice continues to evolve.”
Until now, the only known trans-Neptunian object (object beyond Neptune) to produce its own gas was Pluto, which has a very tenuous atmosphere composed primarily of nitrogen with traces of methane and carbon monoxide, reports Live Science's sister site Space.com. The dwarf planet Ceres, located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, also has a tenuous atmosphere composed of water vapor.
JWST detected methane through a phenomenon known as solar-excited fluorescence, which causes the gas to glow faintly when absorbing solar radiation. Using the telescope's advanced infrared instruments, the team also measured the gas's temperature, which is minus 387 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 233 degrees Celsius).
However, researchers are still unsure where exactly the methane is coming from and whether it will remain trapped in Makemake forever.
One possible explanation is that methane ice on the dwarf planet's surface sublimates, transitioning from a solid to a gas, and is trapped in a fragile, ultra-thin atmosphere similar to those of Pluto and Ceres. However, if this is the case, new data suggest that the pressure in this gas layer would be more than a billion times weaker than that of Earth's atmosphere and more than a million times weaker than that of Pluto, making its existence difficult to confirm.
Images from the Hubble Space Telescope helped discover the presence of Makemake's moon, MK2, in 2015.
Another possible explanation is that gas is ejected from beneath the object's icy surface in jets, similar to those seen on Saturn's frozen ocean moon Enceladus. This potential process, known as outgassing, could occur at various points on the dwarf planet, with methane expelled at rates of up to “several hundred kilograms per second,” Protopapa said. However, based on the available data, it's extremely difficult to say whether this is the case.
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The researchers hope that subsequent JWST observations will help resolve this mystery. However, regardless of the source of the methane, the new results “challenge the traditional view of Makemake as a stationary, frozen body,” the researchers write in their paper.
Earlier this year, another team of researchers using JWST also discovered that Makemake and another distant dwarf planet, Eris, may be geologically active, potentially to the point of supporting life. (There are currently no missions planned to study either of these distant dwarf planets up close.)
Harry Baker, Social Link Navigation, Senior Staff Writer
Harry is a senior writer for Live Science based in the UK. Before becoming a journalist, he studied marine biology at the University of Exeter. He covers a wide range of topics, including space exploration, planetary science, space weather, climate change, animal behavior, and paleontology. His recent work on solar maximum won the 2024 Aerospace Media Awards in the Best Space Story category and was shortlisted for the 2023 NCTJ Awards for Excellence in the Breaking News category. He also writes Live Science's weekly series, “Earth from Space.”
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