Page 16 - Life beyond the Karman

Makemake
Makemake – along with fellow dwarf planets Pluto, Haumea, and Eris – is located in the Kuiper Belt, a region of icy bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. Makemake is slightly smaller than Pluto and is the second-brightest object in the Kuiper Belt as seen from Earth while Pluto is the brightest. It takes about 305 Earth years for this dwarf planet to make one trip around the sun.
Makemake holds an important place in the history of solar system studies because it was one of the objects – along with Eris – whose discovery prompted the IAU to reconsider the definition of a planet and create the new group of dwarf planets.
The surface of Makemake is extremely cold; thus, it seems unlikely that life could exist there. With a radius of approximately 444 miles (715 kilometres), Makemake is 1/9 the radius of Earth. It is 45.8 astronomical units from the sun. One astronomical unit is the distance from the sun to Earth. From this distance, it takes sunlight six hours 20 minutes to travel from the sun to Makemake. Makemake takes 305 Earth years to make one trip around the sun. As it orbits the sun, it completes one rotation every 22 and-a-half-hours, making its day length similar to Earth and Mars.
Eris
Eris is one of the largest known dwarf planets in our solar system. It’s about the same size as Pluto but is three times further from the sun.
At first, Eris appeared to be larger than Pluto. This triggered a debate in the scientific community that led to the IAU’s decision in 2006 to clarify the definition of a planet. Pluto, Eris, and other similar objects are now classified as dwarf planets. The surface of Eris is extremely cold, so it seems unlikely that life could exist there. With a radius of about 722 miles (1,163 kilometres), Eris is about 1/5 the radius of Earth.
Eris is about 68 astronomical units from the sun. From this distance, it takes sunlight more than nine hours to travel from the sun to the surface of Eris. Eris takes 557 Earth years to make one trip around the sun. The plane of its orbit is well out of the plane of the solar system’s planets and extends far beyond the Kuiper Belt, a zone of icy debris beyond the orbit of Neptune. As Eris orbits the sun, it completes one rotation every 25.9 hours, making its day length similar to ours.
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LIFE BEYOND THE KÁRMÁN LINE - OUTER SPACE