 While looking at mamavirus under the electron microscope, Raoult discovered a second, small virus closely associated with mamavirus which was named Sputnik virophage, a satellite virus.Sputnik contains 21 genes and is tiny compared to mamavirus; however, it is quite powerful in its effects on mamavirus.Sputnik cannot replicate in acanthamoeba cells without a simultaneous infection by mamavirus (or mimivirus) so it infects the viral factory that mamavirus creates and hijacks it to replicate its own genome.