Scientists have detected methane gas on the dwarf planet Makemake, indicating that the distant body is a dynamic icy world. The discovery was made by a team led by the Southwest Research Institute ...

What can the presence of methane on a dwarf planet that orbits farther out than Pluto teach scientists about the formation and evolution of planetary bodies? This is what a recent study accepted by ...

An SwRI-led team used Webb telescope observations (white) to detect methane gas on the distant dwarf planet Makemake. Sharp emission peaks near 3.3 microns reveal methane in the gas phase above ...

For years, astronomers believed that Makemake, one of the brightest icy bodies beyond Neptune, was a frozen relic of the outer solar system. New observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope ...