MAXI J1659 - 152 is a bright X-ray transient black-hole candidate binary system discovered in September 2010 .
We report here on MAXI , RXTE , Swift , and XMM-Newton observations during its 2010/2011 outburst .
We find that during the first one and a half week of the outburst the X-ray light curves display drops in intensity at regular intervals , which we interpret as absorption dips .
About three weeks into the outbursts , again drops in intensity are seen .
These dips have , however , a spectral behaviour opposite to that of the absorption dips , and are related to fast spectral state changes ( hence referred to as transition dips ) .
The absorption dips recur with a period of 2.414 \pm 0.005 hrs , which we interpret as the orbital period of the system .
This implies that MAXI J1659 - 152 is the shortest period black-hole candidate binary known to date .
The inclination of the accretion disk with respect to the line of sight is estimated to be 65–80 ^ { \circ } .
We propose the companion to the black-hole candidate to be close to an M5 dwarf star , with a mass and radius of about 0.15–0.25 M _ { \odot } and 0.2–0.25 R _ { \odot } , respectively .
We derive that the companion had an initial mass of about 1.5 M _ { \odot } , which evolved to its current mass in about 5–6 billion years .
The system is rather compact ( orbital separation of \gtrsim 1.33 R _ { \odot } ) , and is located at a distance of 8.6 \pm 3.7 kpc , with a height above the Galactic plane of 2.4 \pm 1.0 kpc .
The characteristics of short orbital period and high Galactic scale height are shared with two other transient black-hole candidate X-ray binaries , i.e. , XTE J1118+480 and Swift J1735.5 - 0127 .
We suggest that all three are kicked out of the Galactic plane into the halo , rather than being formed in a globular cluster .