Waspie_Dwarf Posted January 1, 2019 #1 Share Posted January 1, 2019 Mission control has just received the signal from the New Horizons spacecraft. The vehicle is healthy and has recorded data from the Ultima Thule fly-by. It looks like NASA has successfully pulled off the furthest fly-by of an object ever attempted. Soon it will start the process of transmitting the data, including high resolution images, back to Earth. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waspie_Dwarf Posted January 1, 2019 Author #2 Share Posted January 1, 2019 New Horizons Successfully Explores Ultima Thule NASA Spacecraft Reaches Most Distant Target in History Quote NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew past Ultima Thule in the early hours of New Year's Day, ushering in the era of exploration from the enigmatic Kuiper Belt, a region of primordial objects that holds keys to understanding the origins of the solar system. "Congratulations to NASA's New Horizons team, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and the Southwest Research Institute for making history yet again. In addition to being the first to explore Pluto, today New Horizons flew by the most distant object ever visited by a spacecraft and became the first to directly explore an object that holds remnants from the birth of our solar system," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. "This is what leadership in space exploration is all about." Read More: NASA/JHUAPL 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waspie_Dwarf Posted January 1, 2019 Author #3 Share Posted January 1, 2019 Detecting Ultima Thule's Size and Shape on Approach Quote At left is a composite of two images taken by New Horizons' high-resolution Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), which provides the best indication of Ultima Thule's size and shape so far. Read More: NASA/JHUAPL 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter B Posted January 2, 2019 #4 Share Posted January 2, 2019 "So that's where the 7-pin ended up..." I wonder if it gained its shape by a game of proto-planetary ten-pin bowling? 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seti42 Posted January 2, 2019 #5 Share Posted January 2, 2019 Wake me when we can see pictures. 'Ultima Thule' is a pretty dope name, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L.A.T.1961 Posted January 2, 2019 #6 Share Posted January 2, 2019 3 hours ago, Seti42 said: Wake me when we can see pictures. 'Ultima Thule' is a pretty dope name, though. I thought it must be a made up name but Thule has an origin - "A country described by the ancient Greek explorer Pytheas (c.310 BC) as being six days' sail north of Britain, most plausibly identified with Norway. It was regarded by the ancients as the northernmost part of the world". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L.A.T.1961 Posted January 2, 2019 #7 Share Posted January 2, 2019 Scientists express their delight at the "most detailed image of the farthest object ever explored by a spacecraft". https://news.sky.com/story/ultima-thule-clearest-image-yet-of-snowman-space-rock-released-by-nasa-11597230 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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