Tag: Kuiper Belt
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NASA’s New Horizons probe reveals the shape of its icy target: ‘It’s a snowman!’
The latest view from NASA’s New Horizons probe shows an icy object known as 2014 MU69 or as Ultima Thule to consist of two balls of icy material stuck together. (NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI Photo) LAUREL, Md. — The New Horizons spacecraft’s picture of an icy object 4 billion miles from Earth became a…
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Most distant object ever visited resembles a snowman
The Kuiper Belt Object 2014 MU69 — nicknamed “Ultima Thule” — appears as a dual-lobe contact binary in this photo captured by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft at a distance of around 18,000 miles (28,000 kilometers). Credit: NASA/SWRI/JHUAPL LAUREL, Maryland — The first well-resolved image of the faraway chunk of rock fleetingly visited by NASA’s New…
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New Horizons scientists elated as Ultima Thule’s shape comes into view
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…
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Video: Queen guitarist Brian May discusses his song celebrating Ultima Thule flyby
Queen guitarist and contributing New Horizons scientist Brian May wrote a song celebrating the spacecraft’s New Year’s flyby with Ultima Thule, a supposed block of ice and rock in the Kuiper Belt beyond the orbit of Pluto. May is expected to release the track shortly after midnight on New Year’s Day at the Johns Hopkins…
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Early image of Ultima Thule revealed, providing hints on its shape
John Spencer, the New Horizons Deputy Project Scientist, reveals the first multi-pixel image of Ultima Thule which provide hints at its shape during a news conference at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.
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Video: New Horizons phone home will confirm health of spacecraft
New Horizons Mission Operations Manager (MOM) Alice Bowman describes how New Horizons will turn to Earth and ‘phone home’ to confirm if the flyby of Ultima Thule was a success.
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New Horizons phones home, confirms successful flyby
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, center, celebrates with school children at the moment the spacecraft was planned to reach its closest approach to Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule at 12:33 a.m. EST (0533 GMT) Jan. 1. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls NASA’s New Horizons…
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Video: The New Horizons team hold news conference after flyby declared a success
Watch as the New Horizons team hold a press conference an hour after they received confirmation that the spacecraft had successfully flown by Ultima Thule and had recorded the expected amount of science data.
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New Horizons team celebrates history’s farthest flyby with New Year’s sparkle
LAUREL, Md. — Hundreds of well-wishers took part in a different kind of New Year’s countdown, 33 minutes past midnight, to celebrate the moment when NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft flew past an icy object known as Ultima Thule, more than 4 billion miles away. The revelers here at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory didn’t…
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Watch New Horizons probe ring in the New Year with record-setting Ultima Thule flyby
New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, stands alongside a scale model of the New Horizons spacecraft after a briefing on the Ultima Thule flyby. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle) LAUREL, Md. — The sleeping bags are rolled out and the videos are cued up for a New Year’s…