The New Horizons squad has release the first high-pitched - declaration images of ( 486958 ) 2014 MU69 , nickname Ultima Thule , the furthest aim ever explored by a spacecraft .
New Horizons launched in 2006 and vaporize by its initial target , Pluto , in 2015 . NASA then extended the mission to canvass a newfangled target , a Kuiper Belt Object call ( 486958 ) 2014 MU69 , or MU69 for myopic . Ultima Thule is a temporary soubriquet until a schematic name is selected , likely this year .
The investigation reach out its target on New Year ’s 24-hour interval at 12:33 am ET , though the signal locomote at low-cal speed did n’t reach Earth until yesterday dawn . New Horizons has been releasing blurry photos of the objective and has detected some bizarreness about it , aswe’ve reported — there did n’t seem to be any variation in the amount of light it reflected . Though it appeared to be bowling pin - mold , its actual structure has stay foggy until now .
The new image , the utmost pic ever taken , reply that question : It ’s a very dark carmine , two - lobed object that is 21 mile ( 33 kilometers ) tenacious and 10 miles ( 16 kilometers ) wide . It come out to be a “ contact binary , ” a rough-cut shape for distant comet , as reportedby the Planetary Society . It ’s not wholly clear how these material body form , but it ’s call back that they begin as two objects orbiting one another that commingle .
fresh results confirmed that the object rotates with a period of 15 hours or so , and is very dark-skinned , reflecting only 6 to 13 percent of the incoming sun , Cathy Olkin , a terrestrial scientist at the Southwest Research Institute , said in a press conference . The investigator discover that the unexpectedly downcast edition in the light curve occur from the shape — two sphere rotating have a smaller change in their control surface area from the spacecraft ’s point of view than an ellipse would . The rock had no obvious impact volcanic crater .
Kuiper Belt Objects , of which Pluto is the largest , are particularly interesting because they are thought to retain some of the Solar System ’s original construction cloth , left undisturbed after billions of year . New Horizons scientists have begun to analyze the first data institutionalize back by the spacecraft .
Data and images will stay on to come in throughout the daytime , with more announcement to descend soon .
This clause has been updated .
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