On april 23rd, 2011 we detected a stellar occultation by Makemake. This was the first time that such an event was observed for Makemake and provided us with plenty of information on this dwarf planet. We have published the main scientific results from such an event in the November 22nd issue of the journal Nature, in 2012.
Ortiz et al. (2012). The paper is entitled «Albedo and atmospheric constraints of the dwarf planet Makemake from a stellar occultation«.
Outreach video material
A simulation showing the stellar occultation by Makemake.
The simulation shows images from the Digitized Sky Survey rather than the true images, but it shows a real light curve obtained from the 3.5m NTT telescope at La Silla.
The same simulation in Spanish (en español)
A smaller version of the simulation.
Video from a different source
- A simulation showing the motion of Makemake’s shadow on Earth. Note that this is only an illustration because with the projection of South America used in this video the shadow of Makemake would be distorted and the distortion would be a function of the position. Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO).