Makemake

The kids were outside this past weekend drawing with sidewalk chalk, and I could hear them chatting away. They kept running back inside asking how to mix the chalk colors to make brown, red (we only had pink), and white. They insisted they MUST have these colors.

Then they came running inside and announced that they'd drawn the solar system and we had to come outside and see it. And seriously, folks, they drew the solar system way better than I could. They had all the planets, in order, and in appropriate colors. Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus had rings, as is appropriate, and they even drew the rings on Uranus to show that this planet rotates on its side. I had no idea of any of this until the kids starting asking about planets and watching videos on YouTube. (I think the planet obsession was an offshoot of the superhero obsession, because they are always flying off into space and battling space aliens and such).

I recorded them explaining their drawing to me, Reni singing a song he learned from a YouTube video that lists all the planets in order:

As I was turning off the phone's video recorder, Ani and Reni starting talking about drawing "makemake." (You can hear at the end of the video Anika saying, "I'm going to do Makemake.") I thought they were just making up something silly. I mean, Makemake? Sounds like a Hawaiian fish dish.

Today, when reading Reni a newly-acquired library book on the outer reaches of our solar system, I saw that Makemake is actually one of the five identified planet-like objects in the Kuiper Belt, way past Pluto.

Two thoughts:

1) Thank you, YouTube, for all of your educational videos;

2) We've got to get these kids to a space museum STAT. They will definitely be leading me around and telling me what things are