Wikipedia article of the day for June 15, 2026

The Wikipedia article of the day for June 15, 2026 is Makemake.
Makemake is a dwarf planet orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune. It has a diameter 60% that of Pluto, and is the fourth-largest trans-Neptunian object and the largest member of the Solar System's classical Kuiper belt, a disk of icy bodies beyond Neptune's orbit. Its discovery on March 31, 2005, by American astronomers Mike Brown, Chad Trujillo and David Rabinowitz at Palomar Observatory contributed to the reclassification of Pluto as a dwarf planet in 2006. Makemake's surface, like Pluto's, is largely covered by frozen methane and stained reddish-brown by tholins. It has one known satellite, unnamed, whose orbit suggests that Makemake's rotation has a high axial tilt. Makemake shows evidence of geochemical activity and cryovolcanism, which has led scientists to suspect that it might harbor a subsurface ocean of liquid water. No high-resolution images of its surface exist because it has not been visited up close by a space probe. (This article is part of a featured topic: Solar System.)