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New Horizons Target 2014 MU69 May be a "Contact Binary"

posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday August 09 2017, @07:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the or-just-an-extreme-prolate-spheroid dept.

takyon writes:

2014 MU69, which New Horizons will fly by on January 1, 2019, appears to have an elongated shape or may be comprised of two objects:

Based on the occultation data, 2014 MU69 definitely appears to have an odd shape. In a press release, NASA officials said that it's either football shaped or a type of object called a contact binary. The size of MU69 or its components also can be determined from these data. It appears to be no more than 20 miles (30 km) long, or, if a binary, each about 9-12 miles (15-20 km) in diameter.

By comparison, Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko consists of a large lobe measuring about 4.1 × 3.3 × 1.8 km and a small lobe of about 2.6 × 2.3 × 1.8 km.

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday August 10 2017, @02:28AM (2 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday August 10 2017, @02:28AM (#551418) Journal

    2014 MU69 has been compared to 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko since before there was any evidence of it being a contact binary:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2014_MU69_size_comparison_01.jpg [wikipedia.org]

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  • (Score: 1) by tedd on Thursday August 10 2017, @04:14AM (1 child)

    by tedd (1691) on Thursday August 10 2017, @04:14AM (#551444)

    You're not getting it. What the F are they talking about? It's just a bunch of names and numbers..

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @11:43AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @11:43AM (#551567)

      The names and numbers all mean something:

      When 2014 MU69 was first observed, it was labelled 1110113Y,[15] and nicknamed "11", for short.[5][3] Its existence as a potential target of the New Horizons probe was announced by NASA in October 2014[16][17] and it was unofficially designated PT1 ("Potential Target 1"). Its official designation, 2014 MU69, was assigned by the Minor Planet Center (MPC) in March 2015 after sufficient orbital information was gathered.[3] After further observations pinning down its orbit, it was officially given the permanent minor planet number 486958 in MPC 103886 on 12 March 2017.

      The name 2014 MU69 is a provisional designation and indicates that it was the 1745th object (("U" = 20) + ("69" × 25)) discovered between 16 and 30 June 2014 ("2014", "M").

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%28486958%29_2014_MU69 [wikipedia.org]

      Apparently it is a cubewano, but there is no formal definition of cubewano so I don't know if they can also be comets or not:

      There is no official definition of 'cubewano' or 'classical KBO'. However, the terms are normally used to refer to objects free from significant perturbation from Neptune, thereby excluding KBOs in orbital resonance with Neptune (resonant trans-Neptunian objects).

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Kuiper_belt_object [wikipedia.org]