It’s a strange little world.
At 4 billion miles from Earth, MU69 (also nicknamed Ultima Thule) is the farthest-away object a human spacecraft has ever visited. For the past few years, scientists have labeled MU69 as an unknown, mysterious “puzzle.” A…
Category: New Horizons
Ultima Thule shows its lumps in latest images from New Horizons flyby
The rendezvous between the New Horizons probe and the distant object known as Ultima Thule was an historic moment, but after the mind-blowing imagery the craft sent back from Pluto, you could be forgiven for being a little disappointed in how indistinct the early imagery was. Those concerns should be partly alleviated by the latest image from the probe, which shows the rocky world in considerably greater detail.
View More Ultima Thule shows its lumps in latest images from New Horizons flybyNew Horizons beams back most detailed view yet of super-distant world, MU69
The legendary New Horizons spacecraft has sent back the most detailed image yet of MU69 — the most distant object a human spacecraft has ever explored.
At some four billion miles from Earth, and one billion miles past Pluto, MU69 (which also goes by “Ultima Thule”) has been an object of mystery since its discovery in 2014. But New Horizons finally swooped by the distant object just after the 2019 New Year, uncovering a frozen, snowman-shaped world, composed of two roundish “lobes” that have been stuck together.
“This new image is starting to reveal differences in the geologic character of the two lobes of Ultima Thule, and is presenting us with new mysteries as well,” said Alan Stern, principal investigator of the New Horizons mission, in a statement. The mission is is jointly managed by NASA, the Southwest Research Institute, and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. Read more…
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View More New Horizons beams back most detailed view yet of super-distant world, MU69New Horizons unveils a new world. Actually, it’s 2 worlds smashed together.
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It’s a new, weird world.
The deep space exploration craft New Horizons has sent back the first detailed images of an ancient world floating more than 4 billion miles from Earth, formally known as 2014 MU69. The clearest glimpse yet of MU69 shows that it’s shaped like a snowman, with two roundish lobes that have been fused together.
It is by far the most distant world a spacecraft — and by extension humanity — has ever explored.
“What this spacecraft and this team accomplished is unprecedented,” Alan Stern, the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission, said from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory on Wednesday. Read more…
More about Space, Nasa, Science, New Horizons, and Mu69
View More New Horizons unveils a new world. Actually, it’s 2 worlds smashed together.Behold Ultima Thule, the most distant object ever explored by a spacecraft
The New Horizons probe has just sent back its first real shots of Ultima Thule, a 21-mile-long rock or planetesimal deep in the reaches of the solar system — and now the most distant object ever visited up close by mankind. The principal investigator of the mission, Alan Stern, called the accomplishment “a technical success beyond anything ever attempted before in spaceflight.”
View More Behold Ultima Thule, the most distant object ever explored by a spacecraftUltima Thule is getting clearer, and it looks like a big bowling pin
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It looks like a giant bowling pin.
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has sent back its closest view of the most distant world humanity has ever visited, Ultima Thule, a snapshot taken on December 31. From half a million miles out, Ultima still appears fuzzy, but the irregularly-shaped object is becoming increasingly clear.
The day prior, New Year’s Eve, Ultima was just comprised of a few pixels — so this is a notable improvement.
“Even though it’s a pixelated blob still, it’s a better pixelated blob,” New Horizons project scientist Hal Weaver said Tuesday at mission headquarters, located at Maryland’s Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. Read more…
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View More Ultima Thule is getting clearer, and it looks like a big bowling pinMysterious deep space world Ultima Thule already looks weird — and we’ve only had a glimpse
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Ultima Thule — an uncharted world over 4 billion miles away — is coming into view.
On Monday, planetary scientists released a fuzzy image of Ultima Thule, snapped the day prior by the New Horizons exploration spacecraft from some 1.2 million miles away. Previously, New Horizons swooped by Pluto in 2015, capturing the icy, mountainous world in unprecedented detail.
Increasingly rich, detailed images of Ultima will start arriving on January 2, but already the deep space object looks elongated, not round, said New Horizons deputy project scientist John Spencer from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, the Maryland headquarters of the New Horizons program. The program is a collaborative effort between NASA, the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, where scientists navigate and control the spacecraft. Read more…
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View More Mysterious deep space world Ultima Thule already looks weird — and we’ve only had a glimpseThe New Horizons probe buzzes the most distant object ever encountered first thing tomorrow
Four billion miles from Earth, the New Horizons probe that recently sent such lovely pictures of Pluto is drawing near to the most distant object mankind has ever come close to: Ultima Thule, a mysterious rock deep in the Kuiper belt. The historic rendezvous takes place early tomorrow morning. This is an encounter nearly 30 […]
View More The New Horizons probe buzzes the most distant object ever encountered first thing tomorrowNASA gets ever-closer to its encounter with a distant world 1 billion miles past Puto
It’s getting bigger.
Last week, NASA released photos of the space exploration craft New Horizons gradually approaching an ancient, little-known object in deep space, called Ultima Thule.
Ultima orbits the sun one billion miles past Pluto, and N…
NASA’s New Horizons just gave us its first look at Ultima Thule, a world 1 billion miles from Pluto
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From more than 100 million miles away, New Horizon’s next target barely looks like anything at all.
The object, known as Ultima Thule, has only just now come into view for that NASA spacecraft’s sensitive cameras, allowing the probe — which brought us never-before-seen, close-up photos of Pluto in July 2015 — to take its first-ever images of the distant world.
The images show Ultima Thule surrounded by bright background stars dotting the cosmic landscape, all but blotting out the dim, cold, and small object 1 billion miles from Pluto. Read more…
More about Space, Nasa, Science, Pluto, and New Horizons
View More NASA’s New Horizons just gave us its first look at Ultima Thule, a world 1 billion miles from PlutoNASA’s Pluto-gazing New Horizons is awake and ready for its next close-up
Rise and shine, New Horizons. You’ve got a job to do.
NASA’s intrepid spacecraft, which made its close flyby of Pluto in July 2015, just woke up from a planned nearly six-month hibernation in preparation for its next encounter: On New Year’s Day 2019…
NASA wants the internet to nickname a distant object 1 billion miles past Pluto
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Alright, folks. NASA needs our help.
The space agency is asking people on the internet — yes, that means you — to help it select a fun nickname for a pretty dryly named but still important object: (486958) 2014 MU69.
MU69 is an object — or possibly two objects — floating in the Kuiper belt, Pluto’s part of space which is filled with small objects left over from the dawn of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago.
Scientists need a nickname for MU69 because it’s going to get a lot of attention in the coming years.
On Jan. 1, 2019, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft — which flew past Pluto in July 2015 — will fly by MU69, taking an up-close look at a world (or worlds) never seen in detail before. Read more…
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View More NASA wants the internet to nickname a distant object 1 billion miles past Pluto