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The discovery of Makemake's little moon increases the parallels between Pluto and Makemake. This is because both of the small icy worlds are already known to be well-coated in a frozen shell of methane. Furthermore, additional observations of the little moon will readily reveal the density of Makemake--an important result that will indicate if the bulk compositions of Pluto and Makemake are similar. "This new discovery opens a new chapter in comparative planetology in the outer Solar System," Dr. Marc Buie commented in the April 26, 2016 Hubble Press Release. Dr. Buie, the team leader, is also of the Southwest Research Institute. "For the smaller craters, it's like if you're filling a bucket, eventually your bucket gets full, but if you keep pouring cups of water into the bucket, you can't tell how many cups of water beyond full you've gone. Looking at the larger craters at the subsurface might give us insight, because that 'bucket' isn't full yet," Dr. Soderblom added. The team discovered that the Methone's density would be about 300 kilograms per cubic centimeter. That amounts to less than a third of the density of water, making Methone less dense than any other known moon or asteroid in our Solar System!