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New Images Reveal Structure, Color, and Features of 2014 MU69 (Ultima Thule)

posted by martyb on Wednesday January 02 2019, @10:46PM   Printer-friendly
from the picture-that! dept.

takyon writes:

2014 MU69 has two nearly-spherical lobes and is a contact binary. The collision between the two lobes happened at a low relative velocity, causing little damage to the resulting object. The "neck" between the lobes contains brighter material which appears to be dust that has settled down the slopes that run towards the point of contact.

[Added BBC link -ed]

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Thursday January 03 2019, @04:09AM

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Thursday January 03 2019, @04:09AM (#781376) Journal

    I definitely see what could be flatness in the big lobe in this GIF, while the smaller lobe appears more round:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UltimaThule_TwoCloseups.gif [wikipedia.org]

    There is another press briefing at 2-3 PM EST tomorrow. Hopefully we get a new photo or two along with the composition data.

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