{"id":109417,"date":"2019-01-02T02:41:05","date_gmt":"2019-01-02T02:41:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bnreport.com\/live-updates-new-horizons-flyby-of-a-distant-kuiper-belt-object\/"},"modified":"2019-01-02T02:41:05","modified_gmt":"2019-01-02T02:41:05","slug":"live-updates-new-horizons-flyby-of-a-distant-kuiper-belt-object","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bnreport.com\/en\/live-updates-new-horizons-flyby-of-a-distant-kuiper-belt-object\/","title":{"rendered":"Live updates: New Horizons flyby of a distant Kuiper Belt object"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editors note: This story was updated December 31<\/em>\u2013January 1 with dispatches from astronomy writer Lisa Grossman, who was at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., with the New Horizons team. <\/em><\/p>\n

Updated 1:20 p.m., January 1<\/em><\/p>\n

The last best view of Ultima Thule that New Horizons sent back before last nights flyby gave a rough view of the objects shape. It revealed an elongated, bowling pin\u2013like shape, team members announced at a news conference this morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cIts a pixelated blob, but its a better pixelated blob,\u201d said mission project scientist Hal Weaver, of Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.<\/p>\n

 That shape, plus a new sense of the objects rotation (shown at right in a sequence of three images taken by New Horizons), helped solve one big pre-flyby mystery: What was going on with Ultima Thules brightness? The team was pretty certain that Ultima Thule was elongated and must be spinning, which should have made its brightness appear to vary over time from New Horizons point of view. But it didnt.\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
Before the flyby, team members speculated that New Horizons was seeing Ultima Thule along one edge, and the object was spinning in front of the spacecraft like a propeller. The best pre-flyby images seem to confirm that view, Weaver said. \u201cThat explains everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Its still not entirely clear whether Ultima Thule is a single object with two lobes, or two objects orbiting each other extremely closely. But principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., is betting on it being a solitary world.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf its two separate objects, this would be an unprecedented situation in terms of how close theyre orbiting to one another,\u201d Stern said in the news conference. \u201cThat would be spectacular, and Id love to see it, but the higher probability is a single body.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Ultima Thule is a single, two-lobed body, it could have formed in a slow-motion collision between smaller objects in the solar systems distant past. More high-resolution images will be downloaded in the next few days to help clear things up.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis will all be revealed tomorrow or the next day,\u201d Weaver said. \u201cUltima Thule will turn into a real world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Updated 10:55 a.m., January 1<\/em><\/p>\n
Its official: New Horizons just flew past Ultima Thule, the most distant object ever to get a robotic visitor. After a tense night of waiting, the New Horizons team received the spacecrafts \u201cphone home\u201d signal just after 10:30 a.m. Eastern time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a healthy spacecraft,\u201d said mission operations manager Alice Bowman, who was tallying the status updates from mission control. \u201cWeve just accomplished the most distant flyby. We are ready for Ultima Thule science transmission \u2026 science to help us understand the origins of our solar system.\u201d<\/p>\n
The team is still waiting for more details. But if all went as planned, the spacecraft skimmed past Ultima Thule at about the distance between Washington, D.C., and the west coast of the United States at 12:33 a.m. As of last night, the spacecraft was expected to arrive within a minute of its scheduled flyby time, said principal investigator Alan Stern. \u201cI cant remember the last time an aircraft took me across the country and was on time to within a minute,\u201d Stern quipped.<\/p>\n
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You can watch the 11:30 news briefing here:<\/p>\n