NASA spacecraft zips by most distant world ever studied
Published Jan 1, 2019 08:30 am
By Agence France-Presse
A NASA spacecraft on Tuesday flew past the most distant world ever studied by humankind, Ultima Thule, a frozen relic of the early solar system that could reveal how planets formed.
This artist's illustration obtained from NASA shows the New Horizons spacecraft encountering 2014 MU69 –- nicknamed "Ultima Thule" –- a Kuiper Belt object that orbits one billion miles beyond Pluto (NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI/AFP / HO/ MANILA BULLETIN)
"Go New Horizons!" said lead scientist Alan Stern as a crowd cheered at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland to mark the moment at 12:33 am (0533 GMT) when the New Horizons spacecraft aimed its cameras at the space rock four billion miles (6.4 billion kilometers) away.
"Never before has a spacecraft explored something so far away."
The spaceship was to collect 900 images over the course of a few seconds as it shaved by at a distance of about 2,000 miles (3,500 kilometers).
"Now it is just a matter of time to see the data coming down," said deputy project scientist John Spencer of the Southwest Research Institute.
Scientists expect to learn whether the pass was successful around 10 am (1500 GMT).
What does it look like?
Scientists are not sure what Ultima Thule (pronounced TOO-lee) looks like -- whether it is cratered or smooth, or even if it is a single object or a cluster.
It was discovered in 2014 with the help of the Hubble Space Telescope, and is believed to be 12-20 miles in size.
A blurred and pixelated image released Monday, taken from 1.2 million miles away, has intrigued scientists because it appears to show an elongated blob, not a round space rock.
Even clearer images should be in hand over the next three days.
Scientists decided to study it with New Horizons after the spaceship, which launched in 2006, completed its main mission of flying by Pluto in 2015, returning the most detailed images ever taken of the dwarf planet.
Seven instruments on board will record high-resolution images and gather data about its size and composition.
The flyby will be fast, at a speed of nine miles per second.
Stern said the goal is to take images of Ultima that are three times the resolution the team had for Pluto.
Frontier of planetary science
Ultima Thule is named for a mythical, far-northern island in medieval literature and cartography, according to NASA.
"Ultima Thule means 'beyond Thule' -- beyond the borders of the known world -- symbolizing the exploration of the distant Kuiper Belt and Kuiper Belt objects that New Horizons is performing, something never before done," the US space agency said in a statement.
According to project scientist Hal Weaver of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, humans didn't even know the Kuiper Belt -- a vast ring of relics from the formation days of the solar system -- existed until the 1990s.
"This is the frontier of planetary science," said Weaver.
"We finally have reached the outskirts of the solar system, these things that have been there since the beginning and have hardly changed -- we think. We will find out."
In an editorial in The New York Times, Stern recalled that December 2018 marks the 50th anniversary of the first time humans ever explored another world, when US astronauts orbited the Moon aboard Apollo 8.
"New Horizons will continue in that legacy," Stern wrote.
"As you celebrate New Year's Day, cast an eye upward and think for a moment about the amazing things our country and our species can do when we set our minds to it."
This artist's illustration obtained from NASA shows the New Horizons spacecraft encountering 2014 MU69 –- nicknamed "Ultima Thule" –- a Kuiper Belt object that orbits one billion miles beyond Pluto (NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI/AFP / HO/ MANILA BULLETIN)
"Go New Horizons!" said lead scientist Alan Stern as a crowd cheered at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland to mark the moment at 12:33 am (0533 GMT) when the New Horizons spacecraft aimed its cameras at the space rock four billion miles (6.4 billion kilometers) away.
"Never before has a spacecraft explored something so far away."
The spaceship was to collect 900 images over the course of a few seconds as it shaved by at a distance of about 2,000 miles (3,500 kilometers).
"Now it is just a matter of time to see the data coming down," said deputy project scientist John Spencer of the Southwest Research Institute.
Scientists expect to learn whether the pass was successful around 10 am (1500 GMT).
What does it look like?
Scientists are not sure what Ultima Thule (pronounced TOO-lee) looks like -- whether it is cratered or smooth, or even if it is a single object or a cluster.
It was discovered in 2014 with the help of the Hubble Space Telescope, and is believed to be 12-20 miles in size.
A blurred and pixelated image released Monday, taken from 1.2 million miles away, has intrigued scientists because it appears to show an elongated blob, not a round space rock.
Even clearer images should be in hand over the next three days.
Scientists decided to study it with New Horizons after the spaceship, which launched in 2006, completed its main mission of flying by Pluto in 2015, returning the most detailed images ever taken of the dwarf planet.
Seven instruments on board will record high-resolution images and gather data about its size and composition.
The flyby will be fast, at a speed of nine miles per second.
Stern said the goal is to take images of Ultima that are three times the resolution the team had for Pluto.
Frontier of planetary science
Ultima Thule is named for a mythical, far-northern island in medieval literature and cartography, according to NASA.
"Ultima Thule means 'beyond Thule' -- beyond the borders of the known world -- symbolizing the exploration of the distant Kuiper Belt and Kuiper Belt objects that New Horizons is performing, something never before done," the US space agency said in a statement.
According to project scientist Hal Weaver of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, humans didn't even know the Kuiper Belt -- a vast ring of relics from the formation days of the solar system -- existed until the 1990s.
"This is the frontier of planetary science," said Weaver.
"We finally have reached the outskirts of the solar system, these things that have been there since the beginning and have hardly changed -- we think. We will find out."
In an editorial in The New York Times, Stern recalled that December 2018 marks the 50th anniversary of the first time humans ever explored another world, when US astronauts orbited the Moon aboard Apollo 8.
"New Horizons will continue in that legacy," Stern wrote.
"As you celebrate New Year's Day, cast an eye upward and think for a moment about the amazing things our country and our species can do when we set our minds to it."