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posted by martyb on Wednesday January 02 2019, @03:51AM   Printer-friendly
from the beellions-of-miles-away dept.

New Horizons: Nasa probe survives flyby of Ultima Thule

The US space agency's New Horizons probe has made contact with Earth to confirm its successful flyby of the icy world known as Ultima Thule.

The encounter occurred some 6.5bn km (4bn miles) away, making it the most distant ever exploration of an object in our Solar System.

New Horizons acquired gigabytes of photos and other observations during the pass.

It will now send these home over the coming months.

[...] Even just the final picture released from the approach phase to the flyby contained tantalising information. Ultima appears in it as just a blob, but immediately it has allowed researchers to refine their estimate of the object's size - about 35km by 15km.

It should be become clear within the next day or two whether or not 2014 MU69 is double-lobed or a binary object.

Additionally, The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory self-reports:

The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, designed, built and operates the New Horizons spacecraft, and manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The Southwest Research Institute, based in San Antonio, leads the science team, payload operations and encounter science planning. New Horizons is part of the New Frontiers Program managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Follow the New Horizons mission on Twitter and use the hashtags #UltimaThule, #UltimaFlyby and #askNewHorizons to join the conversation. Live updates and links to mission information are also available on http://pluto.jhuapl.edu and www.nasa.gov.

Also at: Ars Technica, The New York Times, ScienceNews, and phys.org.

Previously: Final Planning for the New Horizons Flyby of 2014 MU69 (Ultima Thule) Underway


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 02 2019, @06:53AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 02 2019, @06:53AM (#780922)

    Is this going to be the meme of 2019?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 02 2019, @12:21PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 02 2019, @12:21PM (#780989)

    I don't know, I'll send your post to facebook and find out. It'll take a while for me to reply. I forgot to send in my bowel movement statistics to Facebook and Zuckerberg is all up in my rectum about it.