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New Movie Shows Ultima Thule from an Approaching New Horizons
This movie shows the propeller-like rotation of Ultima Thule in the seven hours between 20:00 UT (3 p.m. ET) on Dec. 31, 2018, and 05:01 UT (12:01 a.m.) on Jan. 1, 2019, as seen by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) aboard NASA's New Horizons as the spacecraft sped toward its close encounter with the Kuiper Belt object at 05:33 UT (12:33 a.m. ET) on Jan. 1.
The images, which cover about a half of a rotation, help illustrate the solution to Ultima Thule's apparent lack of brightness variations:
The brief video also shows why New Horizons didn't detect any brightness variations from Ultima Thule during the approach phase, a surprising development that initially puzzled the mission team. The lack of such a "light curve" is expected for spherical objects, which don't shift from a viewer's perspective as they rotate, but early data indicated that the 21-mile-long (34 km) Ultima Thule was highly elongated.
As we can now see, it was all about New Horizons' orientation to Ultima Thule. The object's pole of rotation was pointing directly at the approaching spacecraft, so New Horizons didn't see any appreciable changes in the light bouncing off Ultima Thule.
Previously: New Horizons Survives Flyby, Begins Sending Back Data
New Images Reveal Structure, Color, and Features of 2014 MU69 (Ultima Thule)
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday January 18 2019, @07:32PM (5 children)
It's good for science funding that Pluto delivered, because we this one we got peanuts.
Literally: one giant peanut.
Takes a specialist to get excited ... or a very hungry person.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Friday January 18 2019, @08:12PM (4 children)
Nothing like 2014 MU69 has been observed before. Not only did the two lobes come together at a low velocity, but the object is relatively unmarred by impacts due to forming far outside of the inner solar system, and hasn't been damaged by close approaches to the Sun like 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko and other comets have. It's a great find that will help us understand the Kuiper belt, a region containing many times more mass than the asteroid belt.
The flyby was a bonus, and the target was discovered years after the spacecraft launched. That fact alone is compelling.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 19 2019, @12:06AM (3 children)
I hope they can find more targets for NH to visit. It's not easy. Earth-bound scopes failed to find targets when they tried. It took Hubble to find Thule.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday January 19 2019, @12:49AM (2 children)
Like I said in a previous comment, the LSST [wikipedia.org] might be ideal for this. Then you have the JWST, which hopefully would come online around the same time. Hubble's latest problem was just fixed so it is still in the running. It was also suggested that New Horizons could find its own target using the LORRI camera. But that probably won't happen until all the data is sent back, which will take another 19-20 months. So a target ought to be found between 2020-2021.
Unfortunately, if the Kuiper belt ends around 55 AU, New Horizons may exit before we can find a new target. It seems to be traveling [jhuapl.edu] 1 AU in about 100 days, so it could be out in 3-4 years. (If you can come up with better numbers, please post them.)
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(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday January 21 2019, @05:19PM (1 child)
The good news is that they only need to search in a very narrow cone which NH could visit.
The bad news is that they need to find something in that cone.
In the meantime, I guess they can take general pictures of the view from that very distant observation point, just in case someone running an algorithm in 20 years happens to find something important in them.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday January 21 2019, @05:28PM
Yes, they have already been doing stuff along those lines as well as taking oblique views of known KBOs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons#Observations_of_other_KBOs [wikipedia.org]
It can reveal details that may not be visible from Earth. When it comes to these distant objects, the Sun and Earth are essentially in the same place all the time. Part of the reason why 2014 MU69 was so mysterious was that its axis of rotation was facing us.
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