Mom Fears Dad in Boy's Disappearance

The mother of 13-year-old boy Dylan Redwine, who disappeared a week ago during a court ordered visit to his father, fears that the dad may have done something to "remove Dylan from the situation."

Dylan Redwine was last seen at the home of his father, Mark Redwine, when he vanished seven days ago.

"I was married to Mark for a lot of years, and I know the way he reacts to things," Elaine Redwine told ABC News. "If Dylan maybe did or said something that wasn't what Mark wanted to hear, I'm just afraid of how Mark would have reacted."

Elaine and Mark were divorced and live about five hours away from each other, ABC News affiliate KMGH reports. Dylan was staying at his father's home because of a court order granting his father visitation rights for Thanksgiving.

Elaine Redwine told ABC News she believes her ex-husband was upset that she was the court-mandated primary custodian of their son.

"I don't think Mark treats him very well," Elaine Redwine said. "I would not put it past Mark to have done something to remove Dylan from the situation. You know, like 'if I can't have him, nobody will.'"

Dylan had been with his dad in Vallecito, Colo., for just one day before he went missing. Mark Redwine told police that his son was in his home when he left to run some errands at 7:30 a.m. When he returned four hours later, the boy was missing.

Minnesota Man Allegedly Shot and Killed Teens During Break-In Watch Video

FBI's Most Wanted Fugitive Could Be Hiding Among Mormons Watch Video

California Drunken Driving Case: Woman Drove With Dying Man on Car Watch Video

Elaine Redwine told ABC News she was having a difficult time getting in touch with her ex-husband about their son.

"He hasn't had any contact with us. [My older son] tried to get a hold of him by texting him, and he wouldn't respond," she said. "I just find it odd that at a time like this, he would be so evasive."

Mark Redwine declined to speak to ABC News.

Police say they are considering a number of possibilities, including abduction and the possibility that Dylan ran away.

"Foul play is definitely something we are looking at, but we're hoping it's a runaway case and that Dylan will show up and will be fine," La Plata Sheriff's Office spokesman Dan Bender said. "Because we don't have any clues that point in any particular direction, we have to consider every possibility."

Dylan's mother and older brother both insist Dylan wouldn't run away without contacting them, or if he did run away from his dad's home, he would have gone to them.

"When he was afraid in any situation, he knew he could call me and I would drop everything and go out there, first thing," Dylan's brother, Cory Redwine, 21, told ABC News. "He knew that me, my mom, my step-dad, any of us, if he called us and said, 'I need your help,' he knew we'd be there."

Hundreds of people have turned up to help search for Dylan, but so far police say they are no closer to finding him.

"We had people in the air, on horseback, on ATVs, search dogs, and we got no clues from any of that," Bender said.

Dive teams are searching nearby Vallecito Lake using a high-powered sonar gun, after searches this weekend revealed nothing, according to KMGH. Search teams are also combing the shoreline around the lake.

Elaine Redwine told ABC News she thinks somebody must know something, and she hopes they come forward.

"Vallecito is a small community. If anybody has seen anything or knows anything, no matter how big or small it seems, please tell us," Redwine said. "Everything right now is crucial to bringing my little boy home."

Redwine is described as 5 feet tall, 105 pounds, blond hair, blue eyes and fair complexion. He was last seen wearing a black Nike shirt, black basketball nylon shorts, black Jordan tennis shoes and a two-tone blue and white Duke Blue Devils baseball hat.

Read More..

New vaccine may give lifelong protection from flu

Flu season has come early this year in parts of the northern hemisphere, and many people are scrambling to get their annual vaccination. That ritual may someday be history.

In a first for any infectious disease, a vaccine against flu has been made out of messenger RNA (mRNA) – the genetic material that controls the production of proteins. Unlike its predecessors, the new vaccine may work for life, and it may be possible to manufacture it quickly enough to stop a pandemic.

We become immune to a flu strain when our immune system learns to recognise key proteins, called HA and NA, on the surface of the flu virus. This can happen either because we have caught and fought off that strain of flu, or because we received one of the standard vaccines, most of which contain killed flu virus.

Flu constantly evolves, however, so those proteins change and your immunity to one year's strain does not extend to following year's. For this reason, a new vaccine has to be produced each year. Most flu vaccines are grown in chicken eggs or cell culture, a process that takes at least six months.

This time lag means that the World Health Organization has to predict months in advance which viruses are most likely to be circulating the following winter. Drug companies then make a new vaccine based on their recommendations. Of course, these recommendations can be wrong, or worse, when a completely new flu virus causes a pandemic, its first waves can be over before any vaccine is ready.

Freeze-dried vaccine

Now there could be a solution. The mRNA that controls the production of HA and NA in a flu virus can be mass-produced in a few weeks, says Lothar Stitz of the Friedrich-Loeffler Institute in Riems Island, Germany. This mRNA can be turned into a freeze-dried powder that does not need refrigeration, unlike most vaccines, which have to be kept cool.

An injection of mRNA is picked up by immune cells, which translate it into protein. These proteins are then recognised by the body as foreign, generating an immune response. The immune system will then recognise the proteins if it encounters the virus subsequently, allowing it to fight off that strain of flu.

Similar vaccines have been made of DNA that codes for flu proteins. But DNA vaccines seem unlikely ever to be approved, because of worries that they might be incorporated into human DNA, disrupting gene regulation.

Safety advantage

That is not a risk with mRNA, which cannot become part of the genome. For this reason, "RNA probably has advantages over DNA as concerns safety," says Bjarne Bogen of the University of Oslo, Norway, who is working on a DNA vaccine for flu.

Trial RNA vaccines have failed, however, after being destroyed rapidly in the blood. But CureVac, a company in Tübingen, Germany, has found that a protein called protamine, binds to mRNA and protects it. It has an mRNA vaccine against prostate and lung cancer tumours in human trials.

"Amazingly, mRNA vaccines have never been really tested against infectious diseases," says Stitz. His team used CureVac's process to make durable mRNA vaccines for common human flu strains, as well as H5N1 bird flu. In mice, ferrets and pigs, the vaccines rapidly elicited protective levels of antibodies.

Two-pronged immunity

They also induced cell-mediated immunity, which is an immune response that does not involve antibodies but activates blood cells such as killer T-cells to destroy specific pathogens. Vaccines made only of the proteins do not elicit this type of response. Having both types of immunity clears infection faster, and can also protect against flu for longer, as cell-mediated reactions still recognise flu viruses after they have evolved enough to evade antibodies.

A true universal vaccine for flu, however, would induce immunity to proteins that are the same in all flu viruses, but which flu normally hides from the immune system. Stitz's team made an mRNA vaccine to one such protein from an ordinary seasonal flu. The vaccine not only protected animals from that flu strain, but also from H5N1 bird flu.

Vaccines that work against all flu strains could eventually be given once in childhood, like vaccines for other diseases. Meanwhile, Stitz is also working on an mRNA vaccine for rabies. "We think that mRNA would provide an excellent platform against viral, bacterial and fungal diseases," he says.

Journal reference: Nature Biotechnology, DOI: 10.1038/nbt.2436

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.

If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.

Read More..

Football: Messi reaches 82 goals as Barca stay clear

MADRID: Lionel Messi struck twice as Barcelona won 4-0 at Levante on Sunday to remain three points clear of Atletico Madrid at the top of La Liga.

Messi's goals were both laid on by Andres Iniesta who also hit the target himself before supplying Cesc Fabregas for the fourth.

The Argentine's brace means he now has 82 goals in 2012, just six short of German legend Gerd Mueller's all-time calendar record set in 1972.

He also tops the La Liga charts for the season with 19 goals.

Atletico had earlier beaten Sevilla 4-0 to keep pace at the top and go eight points ahead of city rivals Real Madrid in third who had lost 1-0 at Betis on Saturday.

Barca had struggled in the first half and their cause was not helped by losing Dani Alves after only 13 minutes with what appeared to be a recurrence of a recent hamstring injury.

When his replacement Martin Montoya took the pitch it meant Barca's full side had also starred for the club at youth level.

Jose Maria Barkero had the best chance of the opening exchanges for Levante, drawing Barca goalkeeper Victor Valdes into a save with a 12th-minute drive.

Barca took 10 minutes to react, Messi hitting a low shot that missed just wide right, a minute before Xavi Hernandez hit a similar drive that went to the left.

The Catalans' intricate build-up play was comfortably contained by solid defending from the home team in a tight first period.

Levante, in the meantime, looked dangerous on the counter-attack and Obafemi Martins narrowly glanced a header wide just before half-time.

However, Barca finally found a way through just after the break and it was from a perfectly threaded pass from Iniesta that allowed Messi to coolly slot home.

Five minutes later, Iniesta was the provider again, the little midfielder pulling back the ball for Messi to double the lead.

Another five minutes had passed before Iniesta buried Levante's challenge for good with a drive from the edge of the area.

The fourth came on 63 minutes, this time Fabregas was given the simple task of finishing off another Iniesta pass.

Barca had solved what had at first seemed a difficult task with four goals in 18 second-half minutes and for Levante there was no way back.

Valdes made matters worse for the home side making a double save from a Barkero penalty in the dying minutes after Carles Puyol had handled in the area.

For Atletico, Radamel Falcao, Arda Turan and Koke got first-half goals and Miranda one in the last-minute to make it seven straight home wins in the league against a Sevilla side that played with only 10 men from the 22nd minute and finished with nine.

Atletico made a breakthrough on 19 minutes when Koke was pulled down by Federico Fazio, who received a straight red.

Falcao smashed the penalty straight down the middle of the goal for his 11th league goal of the season and Sevilla were facing more than an hour of play with ten men.

On 38 minutes, Turan doubled the home side's lead when Falcao received a defensive clearance and broke at speed before releasing the Turkish winger, who hit a shot that caught a slight deflection of Spahic on the way to goal.

On the stroke of half-time, Koke stroked home a Diego Costa cross for the third.

It was one way traffic in the second period but Sevilla held firm for most of it, despite losing Ivan Rakitic to a second yellow card on 83 minutes, before Miranda hit the fourth from close range in injury time.

Also on Sunday, Athletic Bilbao and Deportivo La Coruna shared the points in a 1-1 draw in the San Mames stadium.

Oscar de Marcos put the home side ahead on 24 minutes when he converted a Markel Susaeta cross, but against the run of play Abel Aguilar hit an equaliser early in the second-half to earn Deportivo a point and move his side out of the relegation zone.

Getafe won 2-0 at Espanyol to keep the Barcelona side bottom of the table, two points behind Deportivo.

Pedro Leon put Getafe ahead on 15 minutes before Mane doubled the lead in the last-minute.

-AFP/ac

Read More..

The Wii U's quest to save living room couch multiplayer

Forget all the talk about the unique
tablet-turned-gamepad controller in Nintendo's new Wii U game console. Forget, as well, the highly hyped possibilities of dual-view second-screen gaming. The real triumph of the
Wii U is in its advocacy for a nearly lost concept -- same-room multiplayer gaming.

Yes, a reasonable amount of same-room gaming still goes on in living rooms and dorms, usually in the form of Street-Fighter-style beat 'em ups, or sports games such as the Madden NFL series. But the classic concept of sharing a physical space alongside a virtual one has been eclipsed for years by other forms of multiplayer gaming that are not reliant on the participants being in the same place or even playing at the same time.

Let's call the experience of playing NintendoLand or New Super Mario Bros. U "synchronous-local" gaming. It's how we would play classic games from Combat on the Atari 2600 to Super Mario Bros. on the original Nintendo Entertainment System. It's also how we've played games from chess to Monopoly long before video games existed (apologies in advance to the legions of correspondence chess players who will no doubt object to this description).

More common today is what we'll call "synchronous-remote" gaming, which involves playing a game with other people at the same time, but not in the same location. That's the typical online shooter, from Halo to Call of Duty, whether played on a game console or a PC. E-sports style game tournaments are an interesting combination of the two forms of synchronous gaming, but still a small niche.

Perhaps most removed from the classic same-room video game experience is asynchronous gaming. These are games played with other people, but neither at the same time nor in the same place. It's the biggest form of gaming around right now, because it includes just about every Facebook and social media game, from Farmville to Words with Friends. It may not be what serious gamers think of as "real" gaming, but it's perfectly suited to the limited time and attention casual gamers (and frankly, most adults with jobs) can invest.

Multiplayer gaming types

Synchronous-local

Same time, same place [Guitar Hero,
Wii Sports, fighting games, Super Mario Bros.]

Synchronous-remote
Same time, different place [Online multiplayer shooters, such as Halo and Call of Duty]

Asynchronous
Different time, different place [FarmVille, Words with Friends]

The original Nintendo Wii console was the last big blow struck for synchronous-local gaming (although a case can be made for the Guitar Hero/Rock Band series of music games as well), largely because of its masterful Wii Sports game, which introduced countless non-gamers to motion-control tennis, bowling, and golf. It remains one of the most important milestones in the history of interactive entertainment, and was perfectly constructed for being shared in real-time in someone's living room.

It's taken six years for the idea to come to the fore again. While the new Wii U console is launching with a much greater emphasis on supporting an online multiplayer community than the original Wii, it's still largely built around the idea of synchronous-local gaming, in a way that the other major living room consoles simply are not (and note that the Wii U still has many other areas in need of improvement, as detailed here).

In my initial couple of weeks with the Wii U, it's become clear that many of the initial run of games, aside from the rote ports of older Xbox/PS3 games, simply play much better in a group setting.

Case in point: NintendoLand is designed to introduce the Wii U tablet controller through the use of recognizable Nintendo characters and short-form mini-games. Having tried most of the single-player games in NintendoLand, I found them frankly boring -- a dressed up tutorial session for the tablet controller that you won't go back to after a first try.

But, as soon as a second player picks up a Wiimote wand joins in for Luigi's Ghost Mansion or Animal Crossing: Sweet Day, it's like a light switch has been flipped on, and the experience completely changes. It's because these mini-games have really been designed with same-room play in mind, but also because same-room multiplayer gaming in general is simply more effective at communicating the shared experience, making use of peripheral vision, your spacial relation to the other players, and non-verbal cues that go missing when, for example, communicating through a scratchy Xbox Live headset.

New Super Mario Bros. U has a similar made-for-multiplayer vibe, although there's an odd disconnect between the tablet and the Wiimote wands. When playing with others, the tablet can only be used to perform support tasks, such as laying down temporary jumping platforms, for the other players. It's a tacked-on bit of busywork, and two-to-four players will have a better time with each using a Wiimote to control an on-screen character.

The Mature-rated horror game ZombiU and military shooter Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 both make a case for more serious games benefitting from local, real-time multiplayer gaming. Those games can pit one player on the TV screen against another using the Wii U GamePad, each performing different tasks ideally suited for their individual screens.

But, is the Wii U an outlier, bringing the emphasis back to synchronous-local gaming for a limited subset of gamers, while millions of others run-and-gun online in Black Ops 2 or Halo 4? Or, will more of us come back to the idea that a big part of the experience of playing with others is doing it in person? Whether you think the Wii U is bringing back same-room shared gaming, or that we already live in an online-only world and there's no going back, post your thoughts in the comments section below.

Read More..

Distant Dwarf Planet Secrets Revealed

Orbiting at the frozen edges of our solar system, the mysterious dwarf planet Makemake is finally coming out of the shadows as astronomers get their best view yet of Pluto's little sibling.

Discovered in 2005, Makemake—pronounced MAH-keh MAH-keh after a Polynesian creation god—is one of five Pluto-like objects that prompted a redefining of the term "planet" and the creation of a new group of dwarf planets in 2006. (Related: "Pluto Not a Planet, Astronomers Rule.")

Just like the slightly larger Pluto, this icy world circles our sun beyond Neptune. Researchers expected Makemake to also have a global atmosphere—but new evidence reveals that isn't the case.

Staring at a Star

An international team of astronomers was able for the first time to probe Makemake's physical characteristics using the European Southern Observatory's three most powerful telescopes in Chile. The researchers observed the change in light given off by a distant star as the dwarf planet passed in front of it. (Learn how scientists found Makemake.)

"These events are extremely difficult to predict and observe, but they are the only means of obtaining accurate knowledge of important properties of dwarf planets," said Jose Luis Ortiz, lead author of this new study and an astronomer at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia, in Spain.

It's like trying to study a coin from a distance of 30 miles (48 kilometers) or more, Ortiz added.

Ortiz and his team knew Makemake didn't have an atmosphere when light from the background star abruptly dimmed and brightened as the chilly world drifted across its face.

"The light went off very abruptly from all the sites we observed the event so this means this world cannot have a substantial and global atmosphere like that of its sibling Pluto," Ortiz said.

If Makemake had an atmosphere, light from the star would gradually decrease and increase as the dwarf planet passed in front.

Coming Into Focus

The team's new observations add much more detail to our view of Makemake—not only limiting the possibility of an atmosphere but also determining the planet's size and surface more accurately.

"We think Makemake is a sphere flattened slightly at both poles and mostly covered with very white ices—mainly of methane," said Ortiz.

"But there are also indications for some organic material at least at some places; this material is usually very red and we think in a small percentage of the surface, the terrain is quite dark," he added.

Why Makemake lacks a global atmosphere remains a big mystery, but Ortiz does have a theory. Pluto is covered in nitrogen ice. When the sun heats this volatile material, it turns straight into a gas, creating Pluto's atmosphere.

Makemake lacks nitrogen ice on its surface, so there is nothing for the sun to heat into a gas to provide an atmosphere.

The dwarf planet has less mass, and a weaker gravitational field, than Pluto, said Ortiz. This means that over eons of time, Makemake may not have been able to hang on to its nitrogen.

Methane ice will also transform into a gas when heated. But since the dwarf planet is nearly at its furthest distance from the sun, Ortiz believes that Makemake's surface methane is still frozen. (Learn about orbital planes.)

And even if the methane were to transform into a gas, any resulting atmosphere would cover, at most, only ten percent of the planet, said Ortiz.

The new results are detailed today in the journal Nature.

Read More..

No Powerball Winner; Jackpot Grows to $425 Million

Nov 25, 2012 10:37am

                                                                (Image Credit: Charlie Neibergall/AP Photo)

The Powerball jackpot has swelled to $425 million, the largest in the lottery’s history, after no tickets matched the winning numbers in a drawing Saturday night.

The Powerball numbers for Saturday were 22-32-37-44-50, and the Powerball was 34.

Iowa Lottery spokeswoman Mary Neubauer said the jackpot could get even bigger before Wednesday, because sales tend to increase in the run-up to a big drawing.

The previous top windfall was $365 million. The jackpot was claimed by eight co-workers in Lincoln, Neb., in 2006.

PHOTOS: Biggest Lotto Jackpot Winners

While millions of Americans can have fun dreaming about how they’d spend the jackpot, the odds of winning are 1 in 175,000,000, according to lottery officials.

To put that in perspective, a ticket holder is 25 times less likely to win the jackpot then they are to win an Academy Award.

Even still, the old saying holds true: “You’ve got to be in it to win it.”

SHOWS: Good Morning America

Read More..

Papa pipefish's pregnancy good for young's immunity

MALE pipefish pregnancy may suit the females, but it's a real boon for their offspring.

In human fetuses, antibodies from the mother's egg and others that pass across the placenta help build its developing immune system. Sperm are too small to carry antibodies, so males aren't thought to contribute.

Not so in pipefish, where the male carries the pregnancy. To see if the immune priming might come from both the mother's egg and via the father's placenta-like structure, Olivia Roth at the Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel in Germany and colleagues exposed lab-grown male and female broad-nosed pipefish to dead bacteria. The fish were then left to mate and the resulting offspring were later also exposed.

The young had the strongest immune response if both parents had been exposed to the bacteria, suggesting both provided antibodies (The American Naturalist, doi.org/jrq).

Pipefish may not be the only fathers that help build their offspring's immune system. Pigeons of both sexes have been shown to "lactate" antibody-rich "milk" in their crops for their chicks.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.

If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.

Read More..

Spain's ETA ready to disband if certain conditions met

MADRID: Spain's armed Basque separatist group ETA said Saturday it was ready to discuss disbanding and to negotiate with France and Spain if certain conditions are met, in a statement published on a Basque news site.

The group, which last year said it had abandoned violence after a four-decade campaign for an independent homeland that claimed more than 800 lives, said one outstanding issue was the transfer of Basque prisoners to jails closer to home.

ETA wanted to discuss "formulas and timetables" to bring home prisoners and Basque political exiles; disarmament and the break-up of its armed structures; and the demobilisation of ETA members.

The statement ran on Naiz.info, the website of the Basque newspaper Gara.

Until Saturday's statement, the group had refused to announce its dissolution and disarmament, as demanded by Spain and France.

But weakened by a series of arrests in France and Spain in recent years, ETA said Saturday it was ready to "listen to and analyse" proposals from Madrid and Paris.

The two governments would have a "precise knowledge" of its positions, it added.

Gara said it would publish the full statement in its Sunday edition.

ETA has been placed on a list of terrorist organisations by the United States and the European Union and has been blamed for the deaths of 829 people. Its last attack on Spanish soil was in August 2009.

It has persistently called for around 700 Basque prisoners incarcerated in jails across Spain to be transferred back to prisons in the Basque region so they can be closer to their families.

-AFP/ac

Read More..

'Gangnam Style' slays Bieber, becomes most-watched vid

"Gangnam Style" has galloped off with another title.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Eric Mack/CNET)

It's official: Justin Bieber has finally been out-Biebered... or perhaps more accurately, the Tween was outdone by the Korean.

As of today, Psy's "Gangnam Style" surpassed Bieber's "Baby" to become the most-watched video on YouTube. While Bieber's top video has been around since 2010, the "Gangnam Style" stratospheric global star has risen so quickly that Psy's dance sensation racked up more than 805 million views to pass Bieber in less than 5 months. That's more galloping in place than I ever thought this world could endure.

Marketing blog Wordstream compiled a bunch of "Gangnam" stats and found that in November, Psy's video was being watched over 4,000 times each minute, on average. Gangnam Style has also been certified by the Guinness folks as the most-liked video in YouTube history with over 2 million digital thumbs up.

Wordstream also projects that given Psy's sustained YouTube momentum, "Gangnam Style" will become the first YouTube video to reach a billion views, around December 11.

In case you've somehow missed it, or just want to contribute to history, go ahead and hit play below. If your speakers are loud enough, somebody within earshot is likely to start dancing, particularly if you happen to be hanging with Eric Schmidt.

Sorry Mr. Pavlov, your bell has been replaced.

Read More..

Distant Dwarf Planet Secrets Revealed

Orbiting at the frozen edges of our solar system, the mysterious dwarf planet Makemake is finally coming out of the shadows as astronomers get their best view yet of Pluto's little sibling.

Discovered in 2005, Makemake—pronounced MAH-keh MAH-keh after a Polynesian creation god—is one of five Pluto-like objects that prompted a redefining of the term "planet" and the creation of a new group of dwarf planets in 2006. (Related: "Pluto Not a Planet, Astronomers Rule.")

Just like the slightly larger Pluto, this icy world circles our sun beyond Neptune. Researchers expected Makemake to also have a global atmosphere—but new evidence reveals that isn't the case.

Staring at a Star

An international team of astronomers was able for the first time to probe Makemake's physical characteristics using the European Southern Observatory's three most powerful telescopes in Chile. The researchers observed the change in light given off by a distant star as the dwarf planet passed in front of it. (Learn how scientists found Makemake.)

"These events are extremely difficult to predict and observe, but they are the only means of obtaining accurate knowledge of important properties of dwarf planets," said Jose Luis Ortiz, lead author of this new study and an astronomer at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia, in Spain.

It's like trying to study a coin from a distance of 30 miles (48 kilometers) or more, Ortiz added.

Ortiz and his team knew Makemake didn't have an atmosphere when light from the background star abruptly dimmed and brightened as the chilly world drifted across its face.

"The light went off very abruptly from all the sites we observed the event so this means this world cannot have a substantial and global atmosphere like that of its sibling Pluto," Ortiz said.

If Makemake had an atmosphere, light from the star would gradually decrease and increase as the dwarf planet passed in front.

Coming Into Focus

The team's new observations add much more detail to our view of Makemake—not only limiting the possibility of an atmosphere but also determining the planet's size and surface more accurately.

"We think Makemake is a sphere flattened slightly at both poles and mostly covered with very white ices—mainly of methane," said Ortiz.

"But there are also indications for some organic material at least at some places; this material is usually very red and we think in a small percentage of the surface, the terrain is quite dark," he added.

Why Makemake lacks a global atmosphere remains a big mystery, but Ortiz does have a theory. Pluto is covered in nitrogen ice. When the sun heats this volatile material, it turns straight into a gas, creating Pluto's atmosphere.

Makemake lacks nitrogen ice on its surface, so there is nothing for the sun to heat into a gas to provide an atmosphere.

The dwarf planet has less mass, and a weaker gravitational field, than Pluto, said Ortiz. This means that over eons of time, Makemake may not have been able to hang on to its nitrogen.

Methane ice will also transform into a gas when heated. But since the dwarf planet is nearly at its furthest distance from the sun, Ortiz believes that Makemake's surface methane is still frozen. (Learn about orbital planes.)

And even if the methane were to transform into a gas, any resulting atmosphere would cover, at most, only ten percent of the planet, said Ortiz.

The new results are detailed today in the journal Nature.

Read More..