Best-Yet View of Ultima Thule

[Waspie_Dwarf]

New Horizons' Newest and Best-Yet View of Ultima Thule

Quote

The wonders – and mysteries – of Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69 continue to multiply as NASA's New Horizons spacecraft beams home new images of its New Year's Day 2019 flyby target.

This image, taken during the historic Jan. 1 flyby of what's informally known as Ultima Thule, is the clearest view yet of this remarkable, ancient object in the far reaches of the solar system – and the first small "KBO" ever explored by a spacecraft.

  Read More: NASA/JHUAPL

 

[Jon the frog]

Quite a lot of space news in the past few years ! I like it !

[+OverSword]

The process of targeting this flyby was really amazing. It hadn’t even been discovered when New Horizons was launched. PBS had a documentary about it a couple of days after it happened. 

[bison]

The large circular marking on the larger lobe of this object has provoked a good deal of comment. It doesn't look too much like a crater. Two sections of its circumference, about opposite each other, appear to made up of double lines. The circle looks a bit lopsided, but seems to have an almost mirror image symmetry, across a line through its center, pointed in the direction of the cleft near one side of the 'neck' region which connects the greater and lesser lobes. 

[Waspie_Dwarf]

8 hours ago, seanjo said:

That is such a fine way of showing how Planets came into being.

Part of the process anyway.

It shows how planetesimals can join together, as a result or gravitational attraction, to form larger bodies and eventually planets. Ultima Thule seems to confirm what scientists have long believed.

It is believed that planetesimals  formed from objects (basically giant rocks) around 200 metres in diameter merging to form objects such as we see with Ultima. As more and more join together the mass increases so there is more gravitational attraction, the objects grow and planetesimals evrntually form. Planetesimals then collide and merge (as seems to bè the case with the two lobes of Ultima Thule) forming larger and larger objects until, eventually, planets emerge.

The 200 metre diameter objects were, themselves, formed by the process of accretion from the dust grains of the nebula surrounding the proto-sun... and therein lies the problem. Gravity is strong enough to allow giant rocks 200 metres in diameter to stick together. The problem is that gravity is simply not strong enough for dust grains to stick to each other. Gravity does not explain how the giant rocks could have formed. It is believed that electrostatic forces may be involved.

Studying a pristine object, such as Ultima, may give answers to how this process began.

[PrisonerX]

Occultist terminology, yet again. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule_Society

[Waspie_Dwarf]

1 hour ago, PrisonerX said:

Occultist terminology, yet again. 

Off topic, total nonsense yet again...

 

Quote

Definition of 'ultima Thule'

noun

1. another name for Thule

2.  any distant or unknown region

3.  a remote goal or aim

Source: Collins English Dictionary 

 

Quote

Thule was a mythical, far-northern island in medieval literature and cartography. Ultima Thule means "beyond Thule"– beyond the borders of the known world—symbolizing the exploration of the distant Kuiper Belt and Kuiper Belt objects that New Horizons is performing, something never before done.

Source: NASA

[PrisonerX]

Just now, Waspie_Dwarf said:

 

Off topic, total nonsense yet again...

Off topic? Sure, it's a deviation, I won't deny that. Total nonsense? Not at all. You'd know that if you had any knowledge of occult influence. 

But with respect to your first (and only valid) criticism, I'll leave it at that. Interesting article, thanks for sharing. 

[Gomar]

Thank God! Now back to eatin' popcorn.