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: Ultima Thule
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 flybyBehold 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…
More about Space, Nasa, Science, New Horizons, and Ultima Thule
View More Ultima Thule is getting clearer, and it looks like a big bowling pinQueen rockstar unleashes badass space song about mysterious world of Ultima Thule
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Queen rocker Brian May used to beg his parents to stay up late, so he could learn about the stars.
Now six decades later, the guitar legend turned astrophysicist has released an arena rock song composed for both the farthest away object humanity has ever visited — Ultima Thule — and the spacecraft sent to scour this distant world, NASA’s New Horizons probe.
“This mission is about human curiosity — the need for mankind to go out there and explore what makes the universe tick,” May said Monday at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland, site of the New Horizons headquarters.
“I hope you will enjoy it,” added May, who released the song two minutes after midnight local time, during the first minutes of the 2019. “I hope it’s worthy of this amazing cause.” Read more…
More about Space, Science, Queen, Brian May, and Ultima Thule
View More Queen rockstar unleashes badass space song about mysterious world of Ultima ThuleMysterious 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…
More about Space, Nasa, Science, New Horizons, and Ultima Thule
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…