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| At top 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. Preliminary measurements of this Kuiper Belt object suggest it is approximately 20 miles long by 10 miles wide (32 kilometers by 16 kilometers). Team members at the Jan 1, 2018 press briefing at JHU APL below. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/spaceupclose.com |
Ken Kremer --SpaceUpClose.com &
RocketSTEM –1 January 2019
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERISTY
APPLIED PHYSICS LABORATORY, LAUREL, MD – NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft ‘Phoned Home’ this morning New Years Day 2019 precisely as planned after successfully conducting
a history making close flyby of the most distant object ever visited by an
emissary from humanity- located more than 4 Billion miles (6.5 billion km) from
Earth at a frozen world named ‘Ultima Thule.’
“We have a healthy spacecraft, we’ve just accomplished the most distant flyby," reported Alice Bowman, the Mission Operations Manager (MOM) at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU APL), in Laurel, MD, after the successful acquisition of the 'Phone Home' signal at about 10:31 a.m. EST.
Furthermore the mission operations reported that the on board data recorders are FULL with SCIENCE !!!!
New Horizons swooped past ‘Ultima Thule’ just past midnight today shortly after the dawn of New Year’s Day 2019 at 12:33 a.m. EST as mission scientists, invited guests and the media including Space UpClose were on hand to witness the groundbreaking events first hand as they unfolded at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, in Laurel, MD.
‘Ultima Thule’ which means “beyond the known world” is a tiny bowling pin shaped rock no more than 20 miles (30 km) long located in the Kuiper Belt and was selected because it has been virtually unchanged for eons and is key to unlocking the mysteries of the origin and evolution of our Solar System since its formation 4.5 Billion Years ago.
"New Horizons performed as planned today, conducting the farthest exploration of any world in history — 4 billion miles from the Sun," said Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
"The data we have look fantastic and we're already learning about Ultima from up close. From here out the data will just get better and better!"
The team released a new composite image of Ultima today roughly 6 pixel resolution that still shows it as a fuzzy blob and elongated – about twice as long as it is wide, said Project Scientist Hal Weaver of JHU APL.
Check out our gallery of on site images from JHU APL throughout the flyby and close encounter period.
“We have a healthy spacecraft, we’ve just accomplished the most distant flyby," reported Alice Bowman, the Mission Operations Manager (MOM) at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU APL), in Laurel, MD, after the successful acquisition of the 'Phone Home' signal at about 10:31 a.m. EST.
Furthermore the mission operations reported that the on board data recorders are FULL with SCIENCE !!!!
New Horizons swooped past ‘Ultima Thule’ just past midnight today shortly after the dawn of New Year’s Day 2019 at 12:33 a.m. EST as mission scientists, invited guests and the media including Space UpClose were on hand to witness the groundbreaking events first hand as they unfolded at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, in Laurel, MD.
‘Ultima Thule’ which means “beyond the known world” is a tiny bowling pin shaped rock no more than 20 miles (30 km) long located in the Kuiper Belt and was selected because it has been virtually unchanged for eons and is key to unlocking the mysteries of the origin and evolution of our Solar System since its formation 4.5 Billion Years ago.
"New Horizons performed as planned today, conducting the farthest exploration of any world in history — 4 billion miles from the Sun," said Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
"The data we have look fantastic and we're already learning about Ultima from up close. From here out the data will just get better and better!"
The team released a new composite image of Ultima today roughly 6 pixel resolution that still shows it as a fuzzy blob and elongated – about twice as long as it is wide, said Project Scientist Hal Weaver of JHU APL.
Check out our gallery of on site images from JHU APL throughout the flyby and close encounter period.
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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. Preliminary measurements of this Kuiper Belt object suggest it is
approximately 20 miles long by 10 miles wide (32 kilometers by 16 kilometers).
An artist's impression at right illustrates one possible appearance of Ultima
Thule, based on the actual image at left. The direction of Ultima's spin axis
is indicated by the arrows. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI; sketch courtesy of
James Tuttle Keane
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Dr. Brian May, lead guitarist for the famous rock bad Queen,
who is also an official member of the science team composed a new song named simply
‘New Horizons’ and music video especially for the flyby at the request of PI
Dr. Alan Stern.
May released the astronomically awesome song during the midnight countdown celebration attended by hundreds at JHU APL leading up to the 12:33 a.m. EST flyby (see my photos).
"This mission is about human curiosity," May said at a media briefing at JHU APL just hours before today’s flyby. "The need of mankind to explore and see what makes the universe tick. My song is an anthem to human endeavor."
May released the astronomically awesome song during the midnight countdown celebration attended by hundreds at JHU APL leading up to the 12:33 a.m. EST flyby (see my photos).
"This mission is about human curiosity," May said at a media briefing at JHU APL just hours before today’s flyby. "The need of mankind to explore and see what makes the universe tick. My song is an anthem to human endeavor."
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Celebrating New Horizons mission New Year’s Day 2019 flyby of Ultima
Thule: PI Dr. Alan
Stern & team member
Dr. Brian May (Queen
lead guitarist) give two thumbs up debuting his new astronomically awesome song
'New Horizons' at JHU APL urging 'the need for mankind to explore space' as the
spacecraft explores the furthest/coldest object ever visited by human emissary. Credit:
Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/spaceupclose.com
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Celebrating New Horizons mission New Year’s Day 2019 flyby of Ultima
Thule team member Dr. Brian
May (Queen lead guitarist)
debuts his new astronomically awesome song 'New Horizons' at JHU APL urging
'the need for mankind to explore space' as the spacecraft explores the
furthest/coldest object ever visited by human emissary. Credit:
Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/spaceupclose.com
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‘Ultima Thule’ is a fossil remnant from the formation of the early solar system that has almost certainly remained unchanged over time and thus represents our best chance to study how we came to be some 4.5 Billion Years Ago.
Virtually nothing is known about ‘Ultima Thule’! But that all changes today with the successful acquisition of signal on New Year’s Day 2019.
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New Horizons post flyby signal has been
acquired at ca. 10:31 am EST Jan 1, 2019, Mission Operations Manager (MOM) Alice Bowman reports with glee, pride and high
fives to Principal Investigator Alan Stern - “We have a healthy spacecraft,
we’ve just accomplished the most distant flyby.".. and the recorders are full
with science gathering from Ultima Thule flyby.
Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/spaceupclose.com
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About 10 hours
after closest approach the New Horizons spacecraft temporarily interrupted data
collection to turn around towards Earth and transmit a limited quantity of data
for about 15 minutes to confirm that the spacecraft was healthy and had collected
the huge amount of color and black and white images, as well as science gathering
measurements and observations amounting to roughly 50 GB of data.
And indeed it did
as Bowman and her team reported out in real time – to the congratulations of PI
Anal Stern and the large crowd of team members, officials, guests and media gathered
at JHUAPL.
The 1054 pound baby grand piano
sized probe carried out the close flyby completely autonomously and operated to
gather data using its 66 pound (30 kg) suite of seven science instruments without
any possible intervention from Earth.
It will take
about 20 months to transit all that data back to Earth across the vast expanse
of 4 billion miles of space. It takes over 6 hours for the data to arrive traveling
at the speed of light.
"This is what leadership in space exploration is all about."
The shape and composition of ‘Ultima Thule’ was
unknown before the flyby.
Even today we know very little but more than yesterday after the first semi resolved image taken just before the flyby was returned across 4 billion miles of space to eagerly waiting scientists on Earth.
Even today we know very little but more than yesterday after the first semi resolved image taken just before the flyby was returned across 4 billion miles of space to eagerly waiting scientists on Earth.
It appears to be peanut shaped and might be bi lobate spinning end over end, or be a binary as two separate bodies.
Its size is estimated at no more than 20 miles (30 kilometers) long and 10 miles (16 km) wide, or, if a binary, each about 9-12 miles (15-20 kilometers) in diameter.
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Two possible rotation periods for Ultima Thule. Credit:
NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
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The Ultima Thule flyby is historic in multiple respects.
Ultima Thule is likely the most primitive object ever visited by any spacecraft in history.
It also counts as the farther planetary flyby encounter ever conducted in history.
At today’s post flyby briefing I asked PI Alan Stern, how common would it be for such a tiny object as Ultima Thule (20 mi long) to actually be two seperate bodies vs bi-lobate? "Unprecedented!" he replied.
“My bet would be it’s probably a single object, it’s bilobate, and if I’m wrong I’ll tell you tomorrow,” Stern told Space UpClose at the briefing.
“If it’s two separate objects, this would be an unprecedented situation in terms of how close they’re orbiting to one another. it would be spectacular to see, and I’d love to see it, but I think the higher probability is it’s a single body.”
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New Horizons team members at the Jan 1, 2018 JHU APL press
briefing. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/spaceupclose.com
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Pluto, the largest known body in the Kuiper Belt, was the first target explored by New Horizons during a fast flyby over three years ago during July 2015.
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Global mosaic of Pluto created from raw images gathered
during July 2015 flyby by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JHU/JPL/SWRI/Marco
Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
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The small icy rock in the Kuiper Belt is located some 1 Billion miles (1.6 Billion km) beyond Pluto and orbits 4.1 Billion miles (6.6 Billion km) from the Sun and the Earth.
The New Horizons team tapped ‘Ultima Thule’ as the nickname for the spacecrafts second flyby target on New Year’s Day 2019 – “symbolizing this ultimate exploration by NASA” says Alan Stern, the missions team leader and chief scientist.
The primitive frozen world - officially known as 2014 MU69 – has now become the farthest object ever explored up close by a manmade emissary in history when NASA’s New Horizons spaceship zoomed past for a close encounter on Jan. 1, 2019 orbiting more than a billion miles beyond Pluto, the most distant planet in our Solar System.
The
first ever up close examination of this distant object holds critical clues to
the formation of the outer solar system eons ago.
Stern says New Horizons spacecraft is performing perfectly and all systems and subsystems are just as good as the day they were launched in Jan. 2006 on a ULA Atlas V rocket.
It has enough power to operate through the mid-2030’s at least and can conduct a third flyby.
The team says they will begin that search immediately using the LORRI camera and propose an extended mission to NASA in the summer of 2020.
Watch
for Ken’s continuing onsite coverage direct from JHU APL.
Stern says New Horizons spacecraft is performing perfectly and all systems and subsystems are just as good as the day they were launched in Jan. 2006 on a ULA Atlas V rocket.
It has enough power to operate through the mid-2030’s at least and can conduct a third flyby.
The team says they will begin that search immediately using the LORRI camera and propose an extended mission to NASA in the summer of 2020.
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NASA New Horizons spacecraft
trajectory since launching from Earth on Jan. 19, 2006 on ULA Atlas V rocket. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI
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Stay tuned here for Ken's continuing Earth and Planetary science
and human spaceflight news: www.kenkremer.com –www.spaceupclose.com – twitter
@ken_kremer – email: ken at kenkremer.com
Dr. Kremer is a research scientist, journalist and photographer based in the KSC area.
Dr. Kremer is a research scientist, journalist and photographer based in the KSC area.
………….
Ken’s photos are for sale and he is available for lectures and outreach events
Ken’s photos are for sale and he is available for lectures and outreach events
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Alice
Bowman, New Horizons Mission Operations Manager (MOM) discusses Ultima Thule
flyby at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory on Dec. 30, 2018 prior
to Ultima Thule New Years Day 2019 flyby. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/spaceupclose.com
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Celebrating New Horizons mission New Year’s Day 2019 flyby of Ultima
Thule team member Dr. Brian
May (Queen lead guitarist) speaks
to the media about his role in the mission and debut of his new song 'New
Horizons' dedicated to the mission at JHU APL urging 'the need for mankind to
explore space' as the spacecraft explores the furthest/coldest object ever visited
by human emissary. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/spaceupclose.com
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