Damn, that four years just flew. The closest approach New Horizons encounter with (486958) 2014 MU69 will occur on January 1, in the afternoon for Australians.

The “core phase” of observations will occur during the period from December 25 to January 3. It will take over a year for all the data to be transmitted.

The NASA team has nicknamed the body Ultima Thule but that’s not an official name.

(486958) 2014 MU69 will be the first body to be visited by a spacecraft that was launched before that body was discovered.

Ultima’s mass is not known at present so it is not known how much the encounter will deflect NH’s path. After the encounter, further targets will be selected and assessed.

What sort of astronomical body is this object?

Michael V said:

What sort of astronomical body is this object?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/(486958)_2014_MU69

Kuiper belt body.

>(486958) 2014 MU69 will be the first body to be visited by a spacecraft that was launched before that body was discovered

That’s an impressive milestone.

After the encounter, further targets will be selected and assessed.

I gather they have some control over changing its trajectory?

Dropbear said:

After the encounter, further targets will be selected and assessed.

I gather they have some control over changing its trajectory?

Yes, still has some fuel left.

Propulsion and attitude control

New Horizons has both spin-stabilized (cruise) and three-axis stabilized (science) modes controlled entirely with hydrazine monopropellant. Additional post launch delta-v of over 290 m/s (1,000 km/h; 650 mph) is provided by a 77 kg (170 lb) internal tank. Helium is used as a pressurant, with an elastomeric diaphragm assisting expulsion. The spacecraft’s on-orbit mass including fuel is over 470 kg (1,040 lb) on the Jupiter flyby trajectory, but would have been only 445 kg (981 lb) for the backup direct flight option to Pluto. Significantly, had the backup option been taken, this would have meant less fuel for later Kuiper belt operations.

There are 16 thrusters on New Horizons: four 4.4 N (1.0 lbf) and twelve 0.9 N (0.2 lbf) plumbed into redundant branches. The larger thrusters are used primarily for trajectory corrections, and the small ones (previously used on Cassini and the Voyager spacecraft) are used primarily for attitude control and spinup/spindown maneuvers. Two star cameras are used to measure the spacecraft attitude. They are mounted on the face of the spacecraft and provide attitude information while in spin-stabilized or 3-axis mode. In between the time of star camera readings, spacecraft orientation is provided by dual redundant miniature inertial measurement units. Each unit contains three solid-state gyroscopes and three accelerometers. Two Adcole Sun sensors provide attitude determination. One detects the angle to the Sun, whereas the other measures spin rate and clocking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons#Propulsion_and_attitude_control

Thanks

There’s a bit of bafflement.

Occultation studies (ie looking at the timing of occultation events where Ultimate blocks out various stars) indicate that Ultima is perhaps peanut shaped or a contact binary, with two blobs sitting together.

But if that were the case it would be expect that as it rotates there would be a significant wobble in its apparent brightness. New Horizons is detecting a light curve that is very flat.

If my BOTE calcs are right, this thing should have a surface temperature of about 25 K. Even by the standards of the outer solar system, that’s low, and part of the interest in Kuiper Belt Objects is that their composition should be unchanged since the very early days of the formation of the solar system.

mollwollfumble said:

Anyone want to bet what ultima-thule looks like?

from https://twitter.com/jtuttlekeane/status/1079399071964712961

Not sure when the flyby is. 4:33 pm east Australia time, but is that tomorrow? And does that include or exclude the 6 hour signal time delay?

The flyby is tomorrow, Australia time, but you’ll need to add the six hours and also they’ll take a little while to prepare the images.

But note that we’ll start to get some approach shots in the hours before the encounter.

In answer to what it should look like:

I’m expecting something like a peanut, but a bit squashed.

dv said:

In answer to what it should look like:

I’m expecting something like a peanut, but a bit squashed.

Hang on, not so fast.
Do you mean the shell that the peanut is housed in?

Peak Warming Man said:

dv said:

In answer to what it should look like:

I’m expecting something like a peanut, but a bit squashed.

Hang on, not so fast.
Do you mean the shell that the peanut is housed in?

Well that’s a fair point, kindly expressed. I do indeed mean the external shell.

dv said:

Peak Warming Man said:

dv said:

In answer to what it should look like:

I’m expecting something like a peanut, but a bit squashed.

Hang on, not so fast.
Do you mean the shell that the peanut is housed in?

Well that’s a fair point, kindly expressed. I do indeed mean the external shell.

Well you’re the only one to put themselves forward to be praised or ridiculed tomorrow afternoon.

Peak Warming Man said:

dv said:

Peak Warming Man said:

Hang on, not so fast.
Do you mean the shell that the peanut is housed in?

Well that’s a fair point, kindly expressed. I do indeed mean the external shell.

Well you’re the only one to put themselves forward to be praised or ridiculed tomorrow afternoon.

I reckon it’ll look like Ultima-Thule.

Peak Warming Man said:

dv said:

Peak Warming Man said:

Hang on, not so fast.
Do you mean the shell that the peanut is housed in?

Well that’s a fair point, kindly expressed. I do indeed mean the external shell.

Well you’re the only one to put themselves forward to be praised or ridiculed tomorrow afternoon.

A coward dies a thousand deaths

Michael V said:

Peak Warming Man said:

dv said:

Well that’s a fair point, kindly expressed. I do indeed mean the external shell.

Well you’re the only one to put themselves forward to be praised or ridiculed tomorrow afternoon.

I reckon it’ll look like Ultima-Thule.

OK, so far we’ve got a peanut and Ultima-Thule.

Peak Warming Man said:

Michael V said:

Peak Warming Man said:

Well you’re the only one to put themselves forward to be praised or ridiculed tomorrow afternoon.

I reckon it’ll look like Ultima-Thule.

OK, so far we’ve got a peanut and Ultima-Thule.

NASA tv has an introduction to the encounter on right now.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=21×5lGlDOfg

mollwollfumble said:

They’ only got 3 pixels and they’re already trying to shop it into a peanut shape.

Peak Warming Man said:

They’ only got 3 pixels and they’re already trying to shop it into a peanut shape.

Peanuts in space

5 hours 57 minutes to encounter.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

Raw images on http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/UltimaThule-Encounter/

29 images released so far. It still looks like a faint dot.

mollwollfumble said:

5 hours 57 minutes to encounter.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

Thanks Moll, I’m there.

mollwollfumble said:

Raw images on http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/UltimaThule-Encounter/

29 images released so far. It still looks like a faint dot.

and which dot would that be?

roughbarked said:

mollwollfumble said:

Raw images on http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/UltimaThule-Encounter/

29 images released so far. It still looks like a faint dot.

and which dot would that be?

the peanut shaped one.

JudgeMental said:

roughbarked said:

mollwollfumble said:

Raw images on http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/UltimaThule-Encounter/

29 images released so far. It still looks like a faint dot.

and which dot would that be?

the peanut shaped one.

36 images so far. Still not particularly exciting.

Live coverage started at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21×5lGlDOfg

Be a lot of political words before the science starts.

mollwollfumble said:

Live coverage started at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21×5lGlDOfg

Be a lot of political words before the science starts.

Cheers

Peak Warming Man said:

mollwollfumble said:

Live coverage started at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21×5lGlDOfg

Be a lot of political words before the science starts.

Cheers

They’re doing a good review of other small objects right now.
Bennu
Mission to trojan asteroids
Mission to phyche

mollwollfumble said:

Peak Warming Man said:

mollwollfumble said:

Live coverage started at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21×5lGlDOfg

Be a lot of political words before the science starts.

Cheers

They’re doing a good review of other small objects right now.
Bennu
Mission to trojan asteroids
Mission to phyche

I like this figure.

!!

https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html#public

They are talking to Bwian May while waiting for the data to come back, could be 20 months wait so I’m going to make a cuppa.

Peak Warming Man said:

https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html#public

They are talking to Bwian May while waiting for the data to come back, could be 20 months wait so I’m going to make a cuppa.

What welevance has Bwian May to (486958) 20124 MU?

Bubblecar said:

Peak Warming Man said:

https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html#public

They are talking to Bwian May while waiting for the data to come back, could be 20 months wait so I’m going to make a cuppa.

What welevance has Bwian May to (486958) 20124 MU?

He’s an astrophysicist and wock star, wrote the music for it or something……………

Bubblecar said:

Peak Warming Man said:

https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html#public

They are talking to Bwian May while waiting for the data to come back, could be 20 months wait so I’m going to make a cuppa.

What welevance has Bwian May to (486958) 20124 MU?

He’s the official NASA composer.

190 photos to be taken at closest approach.
Going much closer than to Pluto, but images willo still be pretty blurred.
2 mins to closest approach.

NASA astronauts are getting younger.

Passed closest approach.

captain_spalding said:

Bubblecar said:

mollwollfumble said:

NASA TV is so bored it has even cut off its live coverage until a few minutes before closest approach. I am so bored and tired.

When can we expect pictures? That’s what people want, pictures, pictures, pictures.

Preferably with celebrities in the pics.

Agreed. No pics before 10 hours from now, it looks like. Perhaps not for 24 hours. What a bummer.

“What welevance has Bwian May to (486958) 20124 MU?”

He is an astrophysicist and was part of the Johns Hopkins University science team for the New Horizons mission.

dv said:

“What welevance has Bwian May to (486958) 20124 MU?”

He is an astrophysicist and was part of the Johns Hopkins University science team for the New Horizons mission.

Yeah, yeah, but can he play any instruments?

Peak Warming Man said:

They’ only got 3 pixels and they’re already trying to shop it into a peanut shape.

you just can’t accept that I was right

Fun fact. Most of the people working on today’s encounter are not going to be paid.

sibeen said:

dv said:

“What welevance has Bwian May to (486958) 20124 MU?”

He is an astrophysicist and was part of the Johns Hopkins University science team for the New Horizons mission.

Yeah, yeah, but can he play any instruments?

You’re a bit unreasonable, sibeen. It’s enough that he has a PhD in astrophysics, he doesn’t need other talents.

dv said:

Fun fact. Most of the people working on today’s encounter are not going to be paid.

Surely May could slip them all a fiver.

Okay, meet back here in about four hours, we should have some kind of pics by then.

dv said:

Okay, meet back here in about four hours, we should have some kind of pics by then.

If you go to the pull down menu under Photos and then Gallery and then Peanut.

Peak Warming Man said:

dv said:

Okay, meet back here in about four hours, we should have some kind of pics by then.

If you go to the pull down menu under Photos and then Gallery and then Peanut.

if I had a dollar for every pixel then I could buy a top shelf cider.

dv said:

Okay, meet back here in about four hours, we should have some kind of pics by then.

Roger, wilco.

Nothing.

Peak Warming Man said:

Nothing.

Telemetry from the encounter should be received about an hour from now

dv said:

Peak Warming Man said:

Nothing.

Telemetry from the encounter should be received about an hour from now

drums fingers

mollwollfumble said:

JudgeMental said:

roughbarked said:

and which dot would that be?

the peanut shaped one.

36 images so far. Still not particularly exciting.

No advance on 36

mollwollfumble said:

mollwollfumble said:

JudgeMental said:

the peanut shaped one.

36 images so far. Still not particularly exciting.

No advance on 36

I think NASA is asleep.

mollwollfumble said:

mollwollfumble said:

JudgeMental said:

the peanut shaped one.

36 images so far. Still not particularly exciting.

No advance on 36

I dunno, images that , as i understand it, are from outside the solar system. I find that impressive, if not exciting.

captain_spalding said:

mollwollfumble said:

mollwollfumble said:

36 images so far. Still not particularly exciting.

No advance on 36

I dunno, images that , as i understand it, are from outside the solar system. I find that impressive, if not exciting.

Not outside the solar system, no. Just beyond Pluto.

SPACE PEANUTS, SPACE PEANUTS, WE WANT SPACE PEANUTS!

WHAT DO WE WANT?

SPACE PEANUTS!

WHEN DO WE WANT THEM?

NOW!

steady lad. steady.

There’s more to life than space peanuts, son. Think yourself lucky you have a hat and shoes. Think yourself lucky you were born with a face.

They aren’t being paid for this so it would seem reasonable for the to operate under “work to rules”.

Bubblecar said:

There’s more to life than space peanuts, son. Think yourself lucky you have a hat and shoes. Think yourself lucky you were born with a face.

“The resolution will improve each day, so you can watch as Ultima Thule is transformed from a barely resolved object into a new world never seen before. In the images posted on Jan. 1, Ultima is expected to be approximately 3 pixels across, but it will grow to approximately 100 pixels across for the images posted on Jan. 2, and approximately 200 pixels across for the images posted on Jan. 3. The team will continue posting LORRI images within 24 hours of their receipt on the ground during the first two weeks of January 2019.”

That’s dates, US time. NASA TV was supposed to have a live update at 2:28 am this morning, eastern Australia time.

From wikipedia:

mollwollfumble said:

Bubblecar said:

There’s more to life than space peanuts, son. Think yourself lucky you have a hat and shoes. Think yourself lucky you were born with a face.

“The resolution will improve each day, so you can watch as Ultima Thule is transformed from a barely resolved object into a new world never seen before. In the images posted on Jan. 1, Ultima is expected to be approximately 3 pixels across, but it will grow to approximately 100 pixels across for the images posted on Jan. 2, and approximately 200 pixels across for the images posted on Jan. 3. The team will continue posting LORRI images within 24 hours of their receipt on the ground during the first two weeks of January 2019.”

That’s dates, US time. NASA TV was supposed to have a live update at 2:28 am this morning, eastern Australia time.

From wikipedia:

(Warning, joke)

In old charts I’ve seen “Thule” used as the Roman name for Britain. I always pronounced it “Thule”, annoying that NASA pronounces it “Two-lee”.

Finally, a close-up image of Ultima Thule.

Thule madly deeply.

I’m pretty confident about my call now.

Worst drive by shooting ever…

Dropbear said:

Worst drive by shooting ever…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBBsb0z9RJk

cue Streisand crooning … “memories”

I was taught wise, known to extort guys
This ain’t Cali, it’s Harlem, n1994z, we do walkbys.

News

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20190101

So the lack of variation in the light curve seems to be because it’s tumbling end over end.

The briefing at 2:20 am east Australia time.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Tlh2uG4yJLs

mollwollfumble said:

News

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20190101

So the lack of variation in the light curve seems to be because it’s tumbling end over end.

The briefing at 2:20 am east Australia time.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Tlh2uG4yJLs

The YouTube is empty until about 21 minutes in.

here be tholins

dv said:

here be tholins

Better be. But not stopping to pick them up.

50 LORRI release images now, up from previous 36, but they still look like specks of dust.

Spacecraft status all OK except perhaps navigation. If navigation is stuffed then spacecraft may have been pointing in wrong direction when taking images. So it’s still fingers crossed time.

I mean it appears as though NH is transmitting the data sequentially.

I respect its orderly habits but really you can probably skip ahead to the good stuff now and transmit the approach shots later.

mollwollfumble said:

News

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20190101

So the lack of variation in the light curve seems to be because it’s tumbling end over end.

The briefing at 2:20 am east Australia time.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Tlh2uG4yJLs

This 8 bit nostalgia is going crazy

dv said:

I mean it appears as though NH is transmitting the data sequentially.

I respect its orderly habits but really you can probably skip ahead to the good stuff now and transmit the approach shots later.

it’s not stupid .. it knows you won’t care if it rushes straight to the climax

Dropbear said:

dv said:

I mean it appears as though NH is transmitting the data sequentially.

I respect its orderly habits but really you can probably skip ahead to the good stuff now and transmit the approach shots later.

it’s not stupid .. it knows you won’t care if it rushes straight to the climax

Image 52.

Dropbear said:

dv said:

I mean it appears as though NH is transmitting the data sequentially.

I respect its orderly habits but really you can probably skip ahead to the good stuff now and transmit the approach shots later.

it’s not stupid .. it knows you won’t care if it rushes straight to the climax

Lousy pixelteaser.

Speaking of New Years I hope it improves its resolution.

It’s still transmitting pictures from Monday morning.

dv said:

Dropbear said:

dv said:

I mean it appears as though NH is transmitting the data sequentially.

I respect its orderly habits but really you can probably skip ahead to the good stuff now and transmit the approach shots later.

it’s not stupid .. it knows you won’t care if it rushes straight to the climax

Lousy pixelteaser.

Speaking of New Years I hope it improves its resolution.

I got that one.

:)

I guess it is more like a bowling pin than a peanut shell, as one blob is much bigger than the other.

dv said:

I guess it is more like a bowling pin than a peanut shell, as one blob is much bigger than the other.

How’s it feel to be wrong all the time?

Along with imaging the Pluto system and MU69, New Horizons has other achievements:

Its observations of the solar system’s “hydrogen wall” added to the data provided by the Voyager probes.

In 2016 it imaged Quaoar, one of the largest Kuiper Belt Objects. This was at quite a large distance, 14 AU. The information about its brightness, though, is useful in narrowing down possibilities about its surface. From Earth, we can only see Quaoar in full sunlight.

It also imaged a medium sized KBO called Arawn, from a distance of about 0.75 AU. It’s not a great image but it did help determine its dimensions and rotational period.

It made observations of two other KBOs called 2012 HZ84 and 2012 HE85, from distances of about half a AU. During the course of its operation it is hoped that New Horizons will make observations of a couple of dozen KBOs. Although half a AU isn’t exactly a close observation, it provides additional data that we can’t obtain from Earth, some 40 to 60 AU away from the Kuiper Belt.

The human race could spend centuries exploring our solar system so many interesting places to visit

Cymek said:

The human race could spend centuries exploring our solar system so many interesting places to visit

sure

Can’t wait for this movie

dv said:

Cymek said:

The human race could spend centuries exploring our solar system so many interesting places to visit

sure

Takes centuries to get there with not much in between.

PermeateFree said:

dv said:

Cymek said:

The human race could spend centuries exploring our solar system so many interesting places to visit

sure

Takes centuries to get there with not much in between.

It sure does

PermeateFree said:

Cymek said:

The human race could spend centuries exploring our solar system so many interesting places to visit

Takes centuries to get there with not much in between.

Get where?

dv said:

PermeateFree said:

Cymek said:

The human race could spend centuries exploring our solar system so many interesting places to visit

Takes centuries to get there with not much in between.

Get where?

Why worry, you’ll be long gone.

The first KBO discovered after Pluto was 15760 Albion. It was discovered by David C. Jewitt and Jane X. Luu in 1992 and at the time it was the most distant solar system object known other than comets.

I wonder if eventually we will get travel to the planets down to a few months and make it a viable place to colonise.
When it takes many years, decades even it makes it really hard to keep people alive with the resources you take with you.

Cymek said:

I wonder if eventually we will get travel to the planets down to a few months and make it a viable place to colonise.
When it takes many years, decades even it makes it really hard to keep people alive with the resources you take with you.

Send robots, a lot less trouble.

Cymek said:

The human race could spend centuries exploring our solar system so many interesting places to visit

Have you seen ‘The Expanse’ Cymek?

Cymek said:

I wonder if eventually we will get travel to the planets down to a few months and make it a viable place to colonise.
When it takes many years, decades even it makes it really hard to keep people alive with the resources you take with you.

Well the travel time to Mars is only about 7 months.

dv said:

Cymek said:

I wonder if eventually we will get travel to the planets down to a few months and make it a viable place to colonise.
When it takes many years, decades even it makes it really hard to keep people alive with the resources you take with you.

Well the travel time to Mars is only about 7 months.

You get my vote dv.

Witty Rejoinder said:

Cymek said:

The human race could spend centuries exploring our solar system so many interesting places to visit

Have you seen ‘The Expanse’ Cymek?

Yes I really like the series

There will be a delay in transmission from 4 to 10 January due to solar interference. 8-/

So here’s hoping there are some good shots transmitted by then.

Okay, so now it is starting to take shape.

It appears to be two icy roughly spherical bodies touching. So called contact binaries.

There’s not a huge amount of colour variation.

They are calling the big part Ultima and the small part Thule.

dv said:

Okay, so now it is starting to take shape.

It appears to be two icy roughly spherical bodies touching. So called contact binaries.

Bubblecar was right when he called it Space Peanut.

Looks like BB8.

Rotational period is about 15 hours.

Density appears similar to water ice.

It’s dark, mean albedo is around 0.10.

dv said:

There’s not a huge amount of colour variation.

Good. I see dv beat me to it. Excellent.

Nice choice of targets, NASA!

This image was taken at 28000 km. Closest approach was about 3400 km so there’s room for the resolution to improve.

dv said:

Nice choice of targets, NASA!

This image was taken at 28000 km. Closest approach was about 3400 km so there’s room for the resolution to improve.

Where are you getting all this information from, dv?

Is it http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/Press-Conferences/index.php?page=2019-01-02

mollwollfumble said:

dv said:

Nice choice of targets, NASA!

This image was taken at 28000 km. Closest approach was about 3400 km so there’s room for the resolution to improve.

Where are you getting all this information from, dv?

Is it http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/Press-Conferences/index.php?page=2019-01-02

The press conference held at 2pm Florida time, shown on Nasa TV.

Divine Angel said:

dv said:

Okay, so now it is starting to take shape.

It appears to be two icy roughly spherical bodies touching. So called contact binaries.

Bubblecar was right when he called it Space Peanut.

apparently there is now a whole gallery of pics…

JudgeMental said:

Divine Angel said:

dv said:

Okay, so now it is starting to take shape.

It appears to be two icy roughly spherical bodies touching. So called contact binaries.

Bubblecar was right when he called it Space Peanut.

apparently there is now a whole gallery of pics…

It’ll be interesting when we can see the facial features of this strange space creature more clearly.

The Rev Dodgson said:

JudgeMental said:

Divine Angel said:

Bubblecar was right when he called it Space Peanut.

apparently there is now a whole gallery of pics…

It’ll be interesting when we can see the facial features of this strange space creature more clearly.

> apparently there is now a whole gallery of pics…

When last I looked, it wasn’t a whole gallery, it was just two new LORRI pictures for the whole day.

The two most recent (53 and 54) on this site. http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/UltimaThule-Encounter/ and added to that, blurry colour from RALPH and date from one or two more instruments.

mollwollfumble said:

> apparently there is now a whole gallery of pics…

When last I looked, it wasn’t a whole gallery, it was just two new LORRI pictures for the whole day.

I suspect he was making a “peanut gallery” joke, m’lud.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-03/new-horizons-picture-ultima-thule-looks-like-snowman-nasa-says/10680874

Michael V said:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-03/new-horizons-picture-ultima-thule-looks-like-snowman-nasa-says/10680874

Yes, definatly looks like a snowman.

Divine Angel said:

Be interesting to see what the neat white collar that joins the two looks like at higher resolution.

Divine Angel said:

My immediate knee-jerk reaction on seeing that was “no”. Because contact binaries are very common among stars, and they don’t form that way.

But on reflection it’s probably right. If it formed that same way that contact binary stars do then it would have to have a much greater rotational speed.

But the explanation given still can’t be complete, because it doesn’t explain how two separate bodies – bodies so separate that they had independent gravitational fields – came to los so much energy that they merged into one. One alternative is energy loss due to gas friction (only possible in the very early solar system) through subsequent inelastic collisions (I can’t see this working) or an orbit with a very high eccentricity. I’m not really happy with any of the three explanations.

mollwollfumble said:

Divine Angel said:

My immediate knee-jerk reaction on seeing that was “no”. Because contact binaries are very common among stars, and they don’t form that way.

But on reflection it’s probably right. If it formed that same way that contact binary stars do then it would have to have a much greater rotational speed.

But the explanation given still can’t be complete, because it doesn’t explain how two separate bodies – bodies so separate that they had independent gravitational fields – came to los so much energy that they merged into one. One alternative is energy loss due to gas friction (only possible in the very early solar system) through subsequent inelastic collisions (I can’t see this working) or an orbit with a very high eccentricity. I’m not really happy with any of the three explanations.

The alternative is that the two halves were never in orbit around one another, but instead were co-orbitals around the Sun. Both in near-circular orbits, the collision just happened to be very gentle. This is the explanation I prefer.

Next press briefing at 2-3 pm east America time = 6-7 am east Australia time?

mollwollfumble said:

mollwollfumble said:

Divine Angel said:

My immediate knee-jerk reaction on seeing that was “no”. Because contact binaries are very common among stars, and they don’t form that way.

But on reflection it’s probably right. If it formed that same way that contact binary stars do then it would have to have a much greater rotational speed.

But the explanation given still can’t be complete, because it doesn’t explain how two separate bodies – bodies so separate that they had independent gravitational fields – came to los so much energy that they merged into one. One alternative is energy loss due to gas friction (only possible in the very early solar system) through subsequent inelastic collisions (I can’t see this working) or an orbit with a very high eccentricity. I’m not really happy with any of the three explanations.

The alternative is that the two halves were never in orbit around one another, but instead were co-orbitals around the Sun. Both in near-circular orbits, the collision just happened to be very gentle. This is the explanation I prefer.

Next press briefing at 2-3 pm east America time = 6-7 am east Australia time?

No new images? Perhaps the cameras were pointing in the wrong direction after all.

There’s been an improvement in resolution, in the latest pics, down to about 140 metres per pixel. Also a comparison with the previous gives a better idea of the 3D shape. Looks like there is some kind of lozenge shaped divot housing the “eyes”.

dv said:

There’s been an improvement in resolution, in the latest pics, down to about 140 metres per pixel. Also a comparison with the previous gives a better idea of the 3D shape. Looks like there is some kind of lozenge shaped divot housing the “eyes”.

Seems we’re looking at some kind of plastic packaging. Wonder what’s inside.

Isn’t it great to be a nerd?

dv said:

There’s been an improvement in resolution, in the latest pics, down to about 140 metres per pixel. Also a comparison with the previous gives a better idea of the 3D shape. Looks like there is some kind of lozenge shaped divot housing the “eyes”.

If you say so. It looks no better than yesterday’s best image to me.

And clearly some of the latest 8 images are pointing in the wrong direction, eg.

There will now be a 6 day break in transmission due to the Sun’s interference. Patience, folks.

dv said:

There will now be a 6 day break in transmission due to the Sun’s interference. Patience, folks.

What’s the Sun doing way out there?

41.7 degrees, it’s now officially warmish. I hung some sheets on the line 10 minutes ago, they’re probably close to dry by now.

dv said:

There will now be a 6 day break in transmission due to the Sun’s interference. Patience, folks.

That’s very poor planning. I should put in a complaint to someone.

Bubblecar said:

dv said:

There will now be a 6 day break in transmission due to the Sun’s interference. Patience, folks.

What’s the Sun doing way out there?

It’s being between us and Pluto…

sibeen said:

41.7 degrees, it’s now officially warmish. I hung some sheets on the line 10 minutes ago, they’re probably close to dry by now.

Probably more like 30 K but okay

dv said:

Bubblecar said:

dv said:

There will now be a 6 day break in transmission due to the Sun’s interference. Patience, folks.

What’s the Sun doing way out there?

It’s being between us and Pluto…

Crazy gyrations.

sibeen said:

dv said:

There will now be a 6 day break in transmission due to the Sun’s interference. Patience, folks.

That’s very poor planning. I should put in a complaint to someone.

Between New Years Day celebrations, the Plutonian Superior Conjunction and the US Govt Shutdown, things have conspired to frustrate this mission so I’m glad everything has basically worked out okay.

I’m sorry for that brain fade.

The sun is between us and Ultima Thule. That’s what’s causing the break.

And Pluto too, pretty much.

nice of Nasa to put the images up on the web page where UT is out of frame …. :rollseyes:

Dropbear said:

nice of Nasa to put the images up on the web page where UT is out of frame …. :rollseyes:

Technically that’s the Johns Hopkins University imaging site, they built and run the LORRI imager, they seem to just throw any old shit up on autopilot. NASA seems to have a better idea of how to drip feed information.

dv said:

Technically that’s the Johns Hopkins University imaging site, they built and run the LORRI imager,

Paid by the click
UT sneaks out of frame. You won’t believe what happens next.

But I have to wonder: why IS LORRI taking so many pictures with UT not in frame?

Is something going wrong?

dv said:

But I have to wonder: why IS LORRI taking so many pictures with UT not in frame?

Is something going wrong?

Just a guess, and I haven’t looked for new images today yet, but when New Horizons came back to life after taking the image sequence, everything was “nominal” ie OK, except navigation. Navigation did not give an “I am nominal” response but rather an “I’ll tell Missions Operation Manager (MOM) how things are in 30 minutes when this live broadcast is finished” response.

Two ways that navigation could have failed. One is if a thruster misfired leading to the spacecraft heading or spinning in the wrong direction. The other is a software glitch that put the spacecraft into a spin in the wrong direction. It would have had to spin in the right direction to photograph MU69 up close during the flyby.

After the first non-announcement that everything was OK, I kept my fingers crossed that whatever had gone wrong had happened after New Horizons had taken the images. But …

The next press briefing after new Horizons had come back on line showed the two LORRI images of the approach, and nothing seemed to be wrong. But the press briefing the next day didn’t mention LORRI or RALPH at all, and was limited to particle flux and magnetic field readings – ie. readings that did not rely on the spacecraft being pointed in any particular direction.

I don’t know whether there was a press briefing this morning. So far, no more than those two original raw images, plus one mostly out of frame, have appeared on the jpl website. Perhaps more will appear later.

So it looks like this is another NASA “conditional success” situations, like the Galileo antenna only partly unfolding, and Juno getting stuck in a 53 day elliptic orbit whgen it was supposed to go into a close circular orbit. In both of those cases, enough data was collected to call it a success.

Plays havoc with my sphincter.

https://i.imgur.com/GfvKYmU.mp4

mollwollfumble said:

dv said:

But I have to wonder: why IS LORRI taking so many pictures with UT not in frame?

Is something going wrong?

Just a guess, and I haven’t looked for new images today yet, but when New Horizons came back to life after taking the image sequence, everything was “nominal” ie OK, except navigation. Navigation did not give an “I am nominal” response but rather an “I’ll tell Missions Operation Manager (MOM) how things are in 30 minutes when this live broadcast is finished” response.

Two ways that navigation could have failed. One is if a thruster misfired leading to the spacecraft heading or spinning in the wrong direction. The other is a software glitch that put the spacecraft into a spin in the wrong direction. It would have had to spin in the right direction to photograph MU69 up close during the flyby.

After the first non-announcement that everything was OK, I kept my fingers crossed that whatever had gone wrong had happened after New Horizons had taken the images. But …

The next press briefing after new Horizons had come back on line showed the two LORRI images of the approach, and nothing seemed to be wrong. But the press briefing the next day didn’t mention LORRI or RALPH at all, and was limited to particle flux and magnetic field readings – ie. readings that did not rely on the spacecraft being pointed in any particular direction.

I don’t know whether there was a press briefing this morning. So far, no more than those two original raw images, plus one mostly out of frame, have appeared on the jpl website. Perhaps more will appear later.

So it looks like this is another NASA “conditional success” situations, like the Galileo antenna only partly unfolding, and Juno getting stuck in a 53 day elliptic orbit whgen it was supposed to go into a close circular orbit. In both of those cases, enough data was collected to call it a success.

Right.

Nothing can be done about it now. By the time they got the first approach images, the flyby was already over. Just have to hope that a) it caught some good hi res pics anyway and b) the situation is recoverable before the next flyby.

And hey, glass half full: what we have so far is interesting.

At least we know now that MU69 doesn’t look like this.

Hey slightly off topic but…

This is an example of the best model of the appearance of Pluto prior to the NH encounter. It’s not really a photograph: it is a modelled map based on light curves during occultations and so on, as measured by Hubble. It’s not bad, matched up okay with the good images. For a long time it was the standard “picture “ of Pluto.

I haven’t seen any similar pictures of the other major post-Neptunian bodies: Eris, Makemake and stuff.

One thing that has surprised me about the trans-Neptunian objects is just how dominant Neptune is. I mean sure, it is the most distant according-to-Hoyle planet and all but Jupiter is 20 times more massive. The great bulk,more than 90%, of trans-Neptunian objects are in orbital resonance with Neptune.

dv said:

One thing that has surprised me about the trans-Neptunian objects is just how dominant Neptune is. I mean sure, it is the most distant according-to-Hoyle planet and all but Jupiter is 20 times more massive. The great bulk,more than 90%, of trans-Neptunian objects are in orbital resonance with Neptune.

What about the cis-Neptunian objects?

It’s officially been assigned a snowman shape so nothing like a peanut and of course much much bigger than the biggest peanut grown in Durant, Oklahoma.

Witty Rejoinder said:

dv said:

One thing that has surprised me about the trans-Neptunian objects is just how dominant Neptune is. I mean sure, it is the most distant according-to-Hoyle planet and all but Jupiter is 20 times more massive. The great bulk,more than 90%, of trans-Neptunian objects are in orbital resonance with Neptune.

What about the cis-Neptunian objects?

Most of those are not in orbital resonance with Neptune.

Peak Warming Man said:

It’s officially been assigned a snowman shape so nothing like a peanut and of course much much bigger than the biggest peanut grown in Durant, Oklahoma.

I concede. I nominate you as my kaishakunin.

dv said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

dv said:

One thing that has surprised me about the trans-Neptunian objects is just how dominant Neptune is. I mean sure, it is the most distant according-to-Hoyle planet and all but Jupiter is 20 times more massive. The great bulk,more than 90%, of trans-Neptunian objects are in orbital resonance with Neptune.

What about the cis-Neptunian objects?

Most of those are not in orbital resonance with Neptune.

(probably you were trying to make a joke but that’s an actual term of art in astronomy)

dv said:

dv said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

What about the cis-Neptunian objects?

Most of those are not in orbital resonance with Neptune.

(probably you were trying to make a joke but that’s an actual term of art in astronomy)

Fuck the astronomical patriarchy!

dv said:

Peak Warming Man said:

It’s officially been assigned a snowman shape so nothing like a peanut and of course much much bigger than the biggest peanut grown in Durant, Oklahoma.

I concede. I nominate you as my kaishakunin.

You just let me know when the pain gets excruciating and I’ll be there for you.

dv said:

One thing that has surprised me about the trans-Neptunian objects is just how dominant Neptune is. I mean sure, it is the most distant according-to-Hoyle planet and all but Jupiter is 20 times more massive. The great bulk,more than 90%, of trans-Neptunian objects are in orbital resonance with Neptune.

Well, that’s The Black Cloud.

Michael V said:

dv said:

One thing that has surprised me about the trans-Neptunian objects is just how dominant Neptune is. I mean sure, it is the most distant according-to-Hoyle planet and all but Jupiter is 20 times more massive. The great bulk,more than 90%, of trans-Neptunian objects are in orbital resonance with Neptune.

Well, that’s The Black Cloud.

:)

dv said:

Michael V said:

dv said:

One thing that has surprised me about the trans-Neptunian objects is just how dominant Neptune is. I mean sure, it is the most distant according-to-Hoyle planet and all but Jupiter is 20 times more massive. The great bulk,more than 90%, of trans-Neptunian objects are in orbital resonance with Neptune.

Well, that’s The Black Cloud.

:)

Neptune would have been called Aquaman if it had been discovered these days.

Michael V said:

dv said:

One thing that has surprised me about the trans-Neptunian objects is just how dominant Neptune is. I mean sure, it is the most distant according-to-Hoyle planet and all but Jupiter is 20 times more massive. The great bulk,more than 90%, of trans-Neptunian objects are in orbital resonance with Neptune.

Well, that’s The Black Cloud.

That’s a point. But Neptune is in the wrong place. Bode’s law gives the correct placement for Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Pluto and Eris. But not Neptune.

2014 MU69 shouldn’t really be called a Kuiper Belt Object, because such a description is almost meaningless. Small bodies beyond Uranus are neatly grouped into:

• Centaurs (between Uranus and Neptune, high orbital inclination),
• Plutinos (in resonance with Pluto, low orbital inclination),
• TNOs (Trans-Neptunian Objects, low orbital inclination, includes Plutionos as a subgroup),
• SDOs (Scattered Disc Objects, high orbital inclination),
• and Comets (originally from the Oort Cloud, extremely high orbital inclination).

The claim that 90% of known objects beyond Uranus are in resonance with Neptune seems excessive. My first guess would have been 60%, because I think it excludes SDOs, which together make up about 40% of such objects.

I can see that I’ll have to check on that.

Witty Rejoinder said:

dv said:

One thing that has surprised me about the trans-Neptunian objects is just how dominant Neptune is. I mean sure, it is the most distant according-to-Hoyle planet and all but Jupiter is 20 times more massive. The great bulk,more than 90%, of trans-Neptunian objects are in orbital resonance with Neptune.

What about the cis-Neptunian objects?

snigger

mollwollfumble said:

Michael V said:

dv said:

One thing that has surprised me about the trans-Neptunian objects is just how dominant Neptune is. I mean sure, it is the most distant according-to-Hoyle planet and all but Jupiter is 20 times more massive. The great bulk,more than 90%, of trans-Neptunian objects are in orbital resonance with Neptune.

Well, that’s The Black Cloud.

That’s a point. But Neptune is in the wrong place. Bode’s law gives the correct placement for Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Pluto and Eris. But not Neptune.

2014 MU69 shouldn’t really be called a Kuiper Belt Object, because such a description is almost meaningless. Small bodies beyond Uranus are neatly grouped into:

• Centaurs (between Uranus and Neptune, high orbital inclination),
• Plutinos (in resonance with Pluto, low orbital inclination),
• TNOs (Trans-Neptunian Objects, low orbital inclination, includes Plutionos as a subgroup),
• SDOs (Scattered Disc Objects, high orbital inclination),
• and Comets (originally from the Oort Cloud, extremely high orbital inclination).

The claim that 90% of known objects beyond Uranus are in resonance with Neptune seems excessive. My first guess would have been 60%, because I think it excludes SDOs, which together make up about 40% of such objects.

I can see that I’ll have to check on that.

> What about the cis-Neptunian objects?

Those are the Centaurs. They were discovered before TNOs.

mollwollfumble said:

> What about the cis-Neptunian objects?

Those are the Centaurs. They were discovered before TNOs.

Note that some TNOs are centaurs such as 2003 QO112.

Actually though I’m going to have to back down on my 90% claim because the list of TNOs that have not yet been assigned a number by the IAU is like 38% cubewanos and cute a few Detached Objects, so it seems that most of the newer-discovered stuff is not Neptunian-resonant.

dv said:

mollwollfumble said:

> What about the cis-Neptunian objects?

Those are the Centaurs. They were discovered before TNOs.

Note that some TNOs are centaurs such as 2003 QO112.

Actually though I’m going to have to back down on my 90% claim because the list of TNOs that have not yet been assigned a number by the IAU is like 38% cubewanos and cute a few Detached Objects, so it seems that most of the newer-discovered stuff is not Neptunian-resonant.

And it looks like I’ll have to back down as well. I thought about 40% of KBOs were SDOs, but the proportion is much smaller than that. 608 SDOs in the minor planets list as against 2442 TNOs, or to put is another way, very close to 20% of KBOs are SDOs.

I am having severe problems, however, with the concept of “resonance”. I’ve plotted the two following graphs for TNO periods and SDO semi-major axes, scaling it so the semi-major axis of Neptune is 1.0.

TNO semi-major axes. The horizontal axis is cumulative number of minor planets.

Centaur and SDO semi-major axes.

While there’s certainly some sense of more objects with semi-major axes relative to Neptune’s 1.0 of about:
1.155 to 1.16
1.205 to 1.215
1.295 to 1.325
1.42 to 1.48
1.65 to 2.1

It totally beats me as to which of those KBOs are considered in resonance with Neptune or not.

Hold on. The square of the orbital period of a planet is directly proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit, independent of eccentricity and inclination.

The first 3 rows are resonant with periods almost exactly 5/4, 4/3 and 3/2 of those of Neptune.
The final two rows don’t reduce easily to simple ratios.
Semi-major axis 1.42 to 1.48 becomes period 1.69 to 1.80 – possibly 7/4 = 1.75 ? possibly not.
Semi-major axis 1.65 to 2.1 becomes period 2.12 to 3.04 – it would really be pushing it to claim a resonance of 5/2 = 2.5.

fresh meat

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20190115

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.

As mollwolfumble predicted, the flat light curve is explained by the fact that the rotation plane is basically perpendicular to the line of sight of NH as it approaches, flying straight at the propeller so to speak.

Even Rocky had a montage, MONTAGE!

pull up.. pull up

Dropbear said:

pull up.. pull up

IKR … I think they just don’t want to admit they crashed

It’s just made of snow so if the probe does collide it’ll probably pop out the other side.

dv said:

fresh meat

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20190115

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.

As mollwolfumble predicted, the flat light curve is explained by the fact that the rotation plane is basically perpendicular to the line of sight of NH as it approaches, flying straight at the propeller so to speak.

Even Rocky had a montage, MONTAGE!

Eye of the tiger playing in the background

Bubblecar said:

It’s just made of snow so if the probe does collide it’ll probably pop out the other side.

have you ever had a snow fight at 30 kilometers a second?

Dropbear said:

Bubblecar said:

It’s just made of snow so if the probe does collide it’ll probably pop out the other side.

have you ever had a snow fight at 30 kilometers a second?

Yes. Though the orbital speed of the Earth probably doesn’t count.

:-)

Dropbear said:

Bubblecar said:

It’s just made of snow so if the probe does collide it’ll probably pop out the other side.

have you ever had a snow fight at 30 kilometers a second?

not even Robin Williams could blow snow that fast

dv said:

Dropbear said:

Bubblecar said:

It’s just made of snow so if the probe does collide it’ll probably pop out the other side.

have you ever had a snow fight at 30 kilometers a second?

not even Robin Williams could blow snow that fast

Robin Williams was a drug user ?
Who’d have known

dv said:

fresh meat

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20190115

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.

As mollwolfumble predicted, the flat light curve is explained by the fact that the rotation plane is basically perpendicular to the line of sight of NH as it approaches, flying straight at the propeller so to speak.

Even Rocky had a montage, MONTAGE!

Nice.

Thanks.

:)

Three week break in the shut down, and we all know what that means…

dv said:

Three week break in the shut down, and we all know what that means…

NASA workers can return to their control rooms.

and they can approve more goodies for public release.

dv said:

That pic was taken from a distance of ~7000 km, about 7 minutes before perithule.

dv said:

Wow!

The post-encounter trajectory New Horizons has now been determined and the process of locating a target for a third encounter has begun.

NH now has about 10 kg of propellant left. This will be enough for about a 40 m/s delta-v correction.

Given its great speed, this gives it a fairly narrow cone of opportunity, about a quarter of a degree.

There are around 500 confirmed trans-neptunian objects now, and a few thousand “likely” others, but they are distributed within a huge space. There’s also a limited time: NH’s power supply will be too low to operate by around 2030.

dv said:

The post-encounter trajectory New Horizons has now been determined and the process of locating a target for a third encounter has begun.

NH now has about 10 kg of propellant left. This will be enough for about a 40 m/s delta-v correction.

Given its great speed, this gives it a fairly narrow cone of opportunity, about a quarter of a degree.

There are around 500 confirmed trans-neptunian objects now, and a few thousand “likely” others, but they are distributed within a huge space. There’s also a limited time: NH’s power supply will be too low to operate by around 2030.

Thanks for the update.

I saw one video clip with about 5 rejected Plutinos on the way to MU69. They were deemed not as close to the track as MU69 and so were rejected. Probably a lot of others out there but not sure if any are close enough to the flight path.

mollwollfumble said:

dv said:

The post-encounter trajectory New Horizons has now been determined and the process of locating a target for a third encounter has begun.

NH now has about 10 kg of propellant left. This will be enough for about a 40 m/s delta-v correction.

Given its great speed, this gives it a fairly narrow cone of opportunity, about a quarter of a degree.

There are around 500 confirmed trans-neptunian objects now, and a few thousand “likely” others, but they are distributed within a huge space. There’s also a limited time: NH’s power supply will be too low to operate by around 2030.

Thanks for the update.

I saw one video clip with about 5 rejected Plutinos on the way to MU69. They were deemed not as close to the track as MU69 and so were rejected. Probably a lot of others out there but not sure if any are close enough to the flight path.

Thinking about finding new small solar system bodies, reminded me of Pan-Starrs. Pan-Starrs is supposed to be 4 telescopes but I’ve only ever seen results from the first, PS1.

“ As of mid-2014, Pan-STARRS 2 was in the process of being commissioned.”

PS2 was supposed to start taking data in October 2017, according to another website.

“The Pan-STARRS2 Telescope (PS2) is currently undergoing commissioning conducting science verification observations and is expected to be fully operational shortly.” From a paper written some time in 2018. Pan-STARRS – The PS1 & PS2 Wide Area Survey for NEOs Kenneth C. Chambers Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii – AMOS Conference
PDFhttps://amostech.com › TechnicalPapers.

That’s four and a half years of commissioning!

“Part of the reason for the delay between the gathering of and transmission of data is that all of the New Horizons instrumentation is body-mounted. In order for the cameras to record data, the entire probe must turn, and the one-degree-wide beam of the high-gain antenna was not pointing toward Earth. Previous spacecraft, such as the Voyager program probes, had a rotatable instrumentation platform (a “scan platform”) that could take measurements from virtually any angle without losing radio contact with Earth. New Horizons was mechanically simplified to save weight, shorten the schedule, and improve reliability during its 15-year lifetime.”

Huh. No moving parts.

dv said:

“Part of the reason for the delay between the gathering of and transmission of data is that all of the New Horizons instrumentation is body-mounted. In order for the cameras to record data, the entire probe must turn, and the one-degree-wide beam of the high-gain antenna was not pointing toward Earth. Previous spacecraft, such as the Voyager program probes, had a rotatable instrumentation platform (a “scan platform”) that could take measurements from virtually any angle without losing radio contact with Earth. New Horizons was mechanically simplified to save weight, shorten the schedule, and improve reliability during its 15-year lifetime.”

Huh. No moving parts.

Solid state?

roughbarked said:

dv said:

“Part of the reason for the delay between the gathering of and transmission of data is that all of the New Horizons instrumentation is body-mounted. In order for the cameras to record data, the entire probe must turn, and the one-degree-wide beam of the high-gain antenna was not pointing toward Earth. Previous spacecraft, such as the Voyager program probes, had a rotatable instrumentation platform (a “scan platform”) that could take measurements from virtually any angle without losing radio contact with Earth. New Horizons was mechanically simplified to save weight, shorten the schedule, and improve reliability during its 15-year lifetime.”

Huh. No moving parts.

Solid state?

Yes, it uses solid state recorders

This is a shot taken by NH of Ultima Thule when it was about 10000 km beyond the closest point, looking back at the scarcely illuminated side.

It’s a nice shot. Although nothing can be seen on the dark side, it does tell us a bit more about the shape, because of the stars that are obscured.

I … am more and more convinced that something went wrong with the target tracking. They had to concoct this image by deconvolving and summing several blurry raw images.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/new-horizons-evocative-farewell-glance-at-ultima-thule

dv said:

This is a shot taken by NH of Ultima Thule when it was about 10000 km beyond the closest point, looking back at the scarcely illuminated side.

It’s a nice shot. Although nothing can be seen on the dark side, it does tell us a bit more about the shape, because of the stars that are obscured.

I … am more and more convinced that something went wrong with the target tracking. They had to concoct this image by deconvolving and summing several blurry raw images.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/new-horizons-evocative-farewell-glance-at-ultima-thule

Thanks.

Scientists’ understanding of Ultima Thule has changed as they review additional data. The “old view” in this illustration is based on images taken within a day of New Horizons’ closest approach to the Kuiper Belt object on Jan. 1, 2019, suggesting that both of “Ultima” (the larger section, or lobe) and “Thule” (the smaller) were nearly perfect spheres just barely touching each other. But as more data were analyzed, including several highly evocative crescent images taken nearly 10 minutes after closest approach, a “new view” of the object’s shape emerged. Ultima more closely resembles a “pancake,” and Thule a “dented walnut.” The bottom view is the team’s current best shape model for Ultima Thule, but still carries some uncertainty as an entire region was essentially hidden from view, and not illuminated by the Sun, during the New Horizons flyby. The dashed blue lines span the uncertainty in that hemisphere, which shows that Ultima Thule could be either flatter than, or not as flat as, depicted in this figure. Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

https://www.techexplorist.com/the-truly-odd-shape-of-ultima-thule/20804/

Bubblecar said:

Scientists’ understanding of Ultima Thule has changed as they review additional data. The “old view” in this illustration is based on images taken within a day of New Horizons’ closest approach to the Kuiper Belt object on Jan. 1, 2019, suggesting that both of “Ultima” (the larger section, or lobe) and “Thule” (the smaller) were nearly perfect spheres just barely touching each other. But as more data were analyzed, including several highly evocative crescent images taken nearly 10 minutes after closest approach, a “new view” of the object’s shape emerged. Ultima more closely resembles a “pancake,” and Thule a “dented walnut.” The bottom view is the team’s current best shape model for Ultima Thule, but still carries some uncertainty as an entire region was essentially hidden from view, and not illuminated by the Sun, during the New Horizons flyby. The dashed blue lines span the uncertainty in that hemisphere, which shows that Ultima Thule could be either flatter than, or not as flat as, depicted in this figure. Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

https://www.techexplorist.com/the-truly-odd-shape-of-ultima-thule/20804/

I’ll wait a few months before buying by Ultima Thule constructor set, as I dare say the best estimate will change as more data arrives, particularly some “side views”.

https://www.space.com/new-horizons-ultima-thule-flyby-geologic-frankenstein.html
NASA’s New Horizons Reveals Geologic ‘Frankenstein’ That Formed Ultima Thule

Less than three months after the New Horizons spacecraft zoomed past a distant, cold space rock, scientists are beginning to piece together the story of how that object, nicknamed Ultima Thule, came to be.

In a series of scientific presentations held today (March 18) at the 50th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, mission scientists shared new data about the space rock’s topography and composition, which is helping them to refine scenarios about how the object formed.

“Every single observation that we planned worked as planned,” Alan Stern, principal investigator of the New Horizons mission and a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, said during the team’s first presentation. “We had a 100 percent successful flyby.”

—-

“In some sense, Ultima has a fairly simplified geology, a bit like Frankenstein here,” Jeff Moore, a New Horizons scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California, said during a presentation. “Thule has a lot more stuff here going on.” In particular, this smaller lobe sports the largest feature on the object, a depression the team has nicknamed Maryland. (New Horizons is operated by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in that state.)

But when the team turns to color images, it’s harder to see evidence of this aggregate structure. MU69’s overwhelmingly red surface shows some variations in color that match surface features, but not the hypothesized small geologic subunits.

“You definitely see some correlation with the geological features, but one thing that you don’t see is any logical correlations with these lumps which might be previous stages of accretion,” Will Grundy, an astronomer at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, said during his presentation. “They don’t look obviously different from each other.”

The new findings also touch on how the two pieces of MU69 converged. As the team has gotten a closer look at the joint of the object, they haven’t found any signs that a violent collision distorted the rock. Instead, the scientists believe that the two halves of the object formed separately, hung around together long enough to sync up their longest and shortest dimensions — like two neighboring pancakes — then very slowly touched, at a speed of about 9.8 feet (3 meters) per second.

dv said:

https://www.space.com/new-horizons-ultima-thule-flyby-geologic-frankenstein.html
NASA’s New Horizons Reveals Geologic ‘Frankenstein’ That Formed Ultima Thule

Less than three months after the New Horizons spacecraft zoomed past a distant, cold space rock, scientists are beginning to piece together the story of how that object, nicknamed Ultima Thule, came to be.

In a series of scientific presentations held today (March 18) at the 50th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, mission scientists shared new data about the space rock’s topography and composition, which is helping them to refine scenarios about how the object formed.

“Every single observation that we planned worked as planned,” Alan Stern, principal investigator of the New Horizons mission and a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, said during the team’s first presentation. “We had a 100 percent successful flyby.”

—-

“In some sense, Ultima has a fairly simplified geology, a bit like Frankenstein here,” Jeff Moore, a New Horizons scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California, said during a presentation. “Thule has a lot more stuff here going on.” In particular, this smaller lobe sports the largest feature on the object, a depression the team has nicknamed Maryland. (New Horizons is operated by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in that state.)

But when the team turns to color images, it’s harder to see evidence of this aggregate structure. MU69’s overwhelmingly red surface shows some variations in color that match surface features, but not the hypothesized small geologic subunits.

“You definitely see some correlation with the geological features, but one thing that you don’t see is any logical correlations with these lumps which might be previous stages of accretion,” Will Grundy, an astronomer at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, said during his presentation. “They don’t look obviously different from each other.”

The new findings also touch on how the two pieces of MU69 converged. As the team has gotten a closer look at the joint of the object, they haven’t found any signs that a violent collision distorted the rock. Instead, the scientists believe that the two halves of the object formed separately, hung around together long enough to sync up their longest and shortest dimensions — like two neighboring pancakes — then very slowly touched, at a speed of about 9.8 feet (3 meters) per second.

Thanks.

:)

Michael V said:

dv said:

https://www.space.com/new-horizons-ultima-thule-flyby-geologic-frankenstein.html
NASA’s New Horizons Reveals Geologic ‘Frankenstein’ That Formed Ultima Thule

Less than three months after the New Horizons spacecraft zoomed past a distant, cold space rock, scientists are beginning to piece together the story of how that object, nicknamed Ultima Thule, came to be.

In a series of scientific presentations held today (March 18) at the 50th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, mission scientists shared new data about the space rock’s topography and composition, which is helping them to refine scenarios about how the object formed.

“Every single observation that we planned worked as planned,” Alan Stern, principal investigator of the New Horizons mission and a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, said during the team’s first presentation. “We had a 100 percent successful flyby.”

—-

“In some sense, Ultima has a fairly simplified geology, a bit like Frankenstein here,” Jeff Moore, a New Horizons scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California, said during a presentation. “Thule has a lot more stuff here going on.” In particular, this smaller lobe sports the largest feature on the object, a depression the team has nicknamed Maryland. (New Horizons is operated by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in that state.)

But when the team turns to color images, it’s harder to see evidence of this aggregate structure. MU69’s overwhelmingly red surface shows some variations in color that match surface features, but not the hypothesized small geologic subunits.

“You definitely see some correlation with the geological features, but one thing that you don’t see is any logical correlations with these lumps which might be previous stages of accretion,” Will Grundy, an astronomer at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, said during his presentation. “They don’t look obviously different from each other.”

The new findings also touch on how the two pieces of MU69 converged. As the team has gotten a closer look at the joint of the object, they haven’t found any signs that a violent collision distorted the rock. Instead, the scientists believe that the two halves of the object formed separately, hung around together long enough to sync up their longest and shortest dimensions — like two neighboring pancakes — then very slowly touched, at a speed of about 9.8 feet (3 meters) per second.

Thanks.

:)

ditto. I’m not sure what we get out of this that wasn’t obvious straight after the flyby.

ditto. I’m not sure what we get out of this that wasn’t obvious straight after the flyby.

The spectrometry and subsequent lithological analysis wasn’t avail until recently.

If you just can’t get enough, then watch the 1 hour press conference called Revealing the first Primordial Planetesimal

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/Press-Conferences/index.php?page=2019-03-18

dv said:

If you just can’t get enough, then watch the 1 hour press conference called Revealing the first Primordial Planetesimal

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/Press-Conferences/index.php?page=2019-03-18

Like the images. This one is interesting, the comparison with Phobos.

OK, I’ll pay that one.

In other words, they don’t know. I can follow collisions with other bodies and drag from nebular gas, but what’s this “tides from other bodies”? I assume that means that they’ve ruled out tides from the two components, like the orbit decay of Phobos around Mars. But I’m not sure why they’ve ruled it out, if the two bodies are rubble piles of loosely bound debris then the energy lost due to tides moving internal rubble around.

Merger in less than one rotation.
Video at http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/Press-Conferences/2019-03-18/originals/accel_720p.mp4

Yes. Quite.

They talked about NH’s future:

New Horizons is currently funded through til the end of 2021. Next year they’ll put in a request to NASA for an extended mission next year.
NH is in good shape. All its systems are working and they haven’t had to switch to backups. There’s a bit of propellent left. The power output has reduced of course and as it gets further away the signal gets weaker they need to slow the bitrate but all signs are that it can keep going into the late 2020s at least.

They have used New Horizons LORRI telescope to make studies of other KBOs that are around 1 AU up to a few AU away from NH. It is not enough to resolve an image of more than one pixel but measuring the light curve gives more information than can be obtained from Earth telescopes 40 AU away. They’ll continue to do that.

So the question is: can they find another target?

Dr Alan Stern seemed to try to manage expectations regarding a third encounter, noting that with greater distance, the objects become fainter and harder to spot from Earth. Even when they were looking for the 2nd encounter target, they were unable to find suitable candidates using Earth based telescopes and turned to the Hubble Space Telescope, and 2014 MU69 was so faint that it was pretty close to the HST’s limit. Also, under a lot of models, the KBO objects get rarer as you get further out.

Larger telescopes (20 to 30 metre telescopes) are being built but they are not going to be completed for a few years yet.

Stern suggested that they might have to rely on New Horizon’s own LORRI telescope to find further targets.

A few highlights:

• Ultima is probably the flattest solid solar system object known.

• Ultima and Thule’s are flattened very much along the same principle axis, only a few degrees between them. This strongly suggests they were aligned prior to impact. Impact appears to have been at 2 to 3 m/s, which suggests that they were brought together by the departure of gas, dust, smaller objects in their little system. It is considered that this is a good model for the accretion of planetesimals into protoplanets generally.

• The colour gradient is extremely typical for cold classical KBOs and the authors suggested this meant that lessons learned from UT can be generalised to that class.

• There was some suggestion that some of the pale patches were from mass wastage events, cf landslides.

• None of the craters are clearly impact craters, due to lack of visible ejecta margins. It was suggested that another possible cause of the craters was the sublimation of buried volatiles.

• The two volatiles they detected so far from the spectrometry were water and methanol.

• They are calling the surface texture “monkeybread”: chunky but with a smoothed surface.

• They appear confident that the collision was primordial, occurring at least 4 billion years ago.

• They are still looking for satellites. This class of KBO is known to commonly have satellites: 30 to 40% have satellites that have been detected from Earth, so presumably the total % with satellites is even higher.

Launch Pad Astronomy: hi-res image and science update on Ultima Thule

Some of you may enjoy this brief summary on Ultima Thule.

And here is the cover of Science magazine, showing probably the highest-res picture we’ll ever get of the whole object (there will be higher res pics of particular regions).

Weird to think this was a year and a half ago.

Anyway it appears that the NH team has not identified any third encounter candidates yet.