Where New Horizons is

[orin stepanek]

When can we expect photos to be released?

[bystander]

New Horizons Successfully Explores Ultima Thule
JHUAPL | SwRI | NASA | New Horizons | 2019 Jan 01

NASA Spacecraft Reaches Most Distant Target in History

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 by 16 km).
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. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI; sketch courtesy of James Tuttle Keane

---

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew past Ultima Thule in the early hours of New Year's Day, ushering in the era of exploration from the enigmatic Kuiper Belt, a region of primordial objects that holds keys to understanding the origins of the solar system. ...

Signals confirming the spacecraft is healthy and had filled its digital recorders with science data on Ultima Thule reached the mission operations center at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) today at 10:29 a.m. EST, almost exactly 10 hours after New Horizons' closest approach to the object. ...

Images taken during the spacecraft's approach — which brought New Horizons to within just 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) of Ultima at 12:33 a.m. EST — revealed that the Kuiper Belt object may have a shape similar to a bowling pin, spinning end over end, with dimensions of approximately 20 by 10 miles (32 by 16 kilometers). Another possibility is Ultima could be two objects orbiting each other. Flyby data have already solved one of Ultima's mysteries, showing that the Kuiper Belt object is spinning like a propeller with the axis pointing approximately toward New Horizons. This explains why, in earlier images taken before Ultima was resolved, its brightness didn't appear to vary as it rotated. The team has still not determined the rotation period.

As the science data began its initial return to Earth, mission team members and leadership reveled in the excitement of the first exploration of this distant region of space. ...

[BDanielMayfield]

When can we expect photos to be released?

May have to wait just a few more days or weeks Orin, at least for the really good stuff. I just read that NH is about to pass behind the Sun from our vantage, so there will be a short radio blackout of a few days in early January.

[neufer]

New Horizons Successfully Explores Ultima Thule
JHUAPL | SwRI | NASA | New Horizons | 2019 Jan 01

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 by 16 km).
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. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI; sketch courtesy of James Tuttle Keane

---

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew past Ultima Thule in the early hours of New Year's Day, ushering in the era of exploration from the enigmatic Kuiper Belt, a region of primordial objects that holds keys to understanding the origins of the solar system. ...

Signals confirming the spacecraft is healthy and had filled its digital recorders with science data on Ultima Thule reached the mission operations center at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) today at 10:29 a.m. EST, almost exactly 10 hours after New Horizons' closest approach to the object. ...

Images taken during the spacecraft's approach — which brought New Horizons to within just 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) of Ultima at 12:33 a.m. EST — revealed that the Kuiper Belt object may have a shape similar to a bowling pin, spinning end over end, with dimensions of approximately 20 by 10 miles (32 by 16 kilometers). Another possibility is Ultima could be two objects orbiting each other. Flyby data have already solved one of Ultima's mysteries, showing that the Kuiper Belt object is spinning like a propeller with the axis pointing approximately toward New Horizons. This explains why, in earlier images taken before Ultima was resolved, its brightness didn't appear to vary as it rotated. The team has still not determined the rotation period.

---

<<The shmoo (plural: shmoon, also shmoos) is a fictional cartoon creature created by Al Capp. The popular character has gone on to influence pop culture, language and even science.

Cartoonist Al CAPp ascribed to the shmoo the following curious characteristics:

They are incredibly prolific, multiplying exponentially faster than rabbits.

Shmoos are delicious to eat, and are eager to be eaten. When roasted they taste like pork, and when baked they taste like catfish. (Raw, they taste like oysters on the half-shell.)

They also produce eggs (neatly packaged), milk (bottled, grade-A), and butter—no churning required. Their pelts make perfect bootleather or house timbers, depending on how thick one slices them.

They have no bones, so there's absolutely no waste. Their eyes make the best suspender buttons, and their whiskers make perfect toothpicks. In short, they are simply the perfect ideal of a subsistence agricultural herd animal.

Naturally gentle, they require minimal care, and are ideal playmates for young children.

Some of the more tasty varieties of shmoo are more difficult to catch. Usually shmoo hunters, now a sport in some parts of the country, utilize a paper bag, flashlight and stick to capture their shmoos. At night the light stuns them, then they can be whacked in the head with the stick and put in the bag for frying up later on.

In a sequence beginning in late August 1948, Li'l Abner discovers the shmoos when he ventures into the forbidden "Valley of the Shmoon" following the mysterious and musical sound they make (from which their name derives). There, against the frantic protestations of a naked, heavily bearded old man who shepherds the shmoos, Abner befriends the strange and charming creatures. "Shmoos", the old man warns, "is the greatest menace to hoomanity th' world has evah known!" "Thass becuz they is so bad, huh?" asks Li'l Abner. "No, stupid", answers the man—and then encapsulates one of life's profound paradoxes: "It's because they's so good!!".

Having discovered their value ("Wif these around, nobody won't nevah havta work no more!!"), Abner leads the shmoos out of the valley—where they become a sensation in Dogpatch and, quickly, the rest of the world. Captains of industry such as J. Roaringham Fatback, the "Pork King", become alarmed as sales of nearly all products decline, and in a series of images reminiscent of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the "Shmoo Crisis" unfolds. On Fatback's orders, a corrupt exterminator orders out "Shmooicide Squads" to wipe out the shmoos with a variety of firearms, which is depicted in a macabre and comically graphic sequence, with a tearful Li'l Abner misguidedly saluting the supposed "authority" of the extermination squads.

However, it is soon discovered that Abner has secretly saved two shmoos, a "boy" and a "girl". The boy shmoo, as a Dogpatch native, is required to run from the girl shmoo in the annual Sadie Hawkins Day race. When he is caught by her, in accordance with the rules of the race, they are joined in marriage by Marryin' Sam (whom they "pay" with a dozen eggs, two pounds of butter and six cupcakes with chocolate frosting—all of which Sam reckons to be worth about 98 cents). The already expanding shmoo family is last seen returning towards the Valley of the Shmoon. The sequence, which ended just before Christmas of 1948, was massively popular, both as a commentary on the state of society and a classic allegory of greed and corruption tarnishing all that is good and innocent in the world.>>

[BDanielMayfield]

When can we expect photos to be released?

May have to wait just a few more days or weeks Orin, at least for the really good stuff. I just read that NH is about to pass behind the Sun from our vantage, so there will be a short radio blackout of a few days in early January.

Just read on space.com that this radio blackout period runs from Jan 4 to 9, so we might get some goodies soon Orin.

[orin stepanek]

10Q BielDaniel! Hopeful for it!

[neufer]

When can we expect photos to be released?

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Wednesday January 2, 2019 2:00-3:00 pm EST

https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive

Press briefing: Science results from Ultima Thule. Panelists include Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator, Southwest Research Institute; Jeff Moore, New Horizons co-investigator, NASA Ames Research Center; Cathy Olkin, New Horizons deputy project scientist, Southwest Research Institute; Will Grundy, New Horizons co-investigator, Lowell Observatory.

[BDanielMayfield]

Check this out y'all. https://www.centauri-dreams.org/

It’s a snowman, not a bowling pin!

[neufer]

Check this out y'all. https://www.centauri-dreams.org/

It’s a snowman, not a bowling pin!

MU69 appears as a bi-lobed baby comet in latest New Horizons images
Emily Lakdawalla • Planetary Society • January 2, 2019

---

<<So how does a separated binary become a contact binary? One thing that needs to happen, obviously, is that the two components have to get closer together. In physics terms, their orbit needs to destabilize. Nesvorný and coauthors say the orbit could destabilize in several ways. Small impacts on either object could cancel out some of their orbital energy, allowing them to draw closer to each other over time. If the binary orbit was significantly tilted with respect to the plane of its orbit around the Sun, a kind of orbital dynamic called Kozai cycles could draw them closer together.

Nesvorný, Parker, and Vokrouhlický find that it’s quite possible to collapse binaries extremely gently. They touch at about 80 centimeters per second. That’s slower than human walking speed. I looked around for another creature (besides “a child”) that walks at 80 centimeters per second, and thanks to Michele Bannister I know that geckos climb vertically at 77 centimeters per second. So the two members of a contact binary collide with the speed of a gecko climbing a wall. (That’s adorable.) “For such low speeds,” Nesvorný et al. write, “impacts are expected to result in accretion of the binary components. This may happen instantly, during a single head-on collision, or after a series of grazing collisions. If the components have sufficient cohesion before impacts, the end result of this process should be the formation of a contact binary.” The paper posits that in order to keep this merger from happening, you need some time between the formation of the original, separated binary and the collapse of the binary, “a significant delay...possibly as long as ⪆10 Myr, during which the two components of a binary can gain the internal strength (e.g., by modest radioactive heating), and resist disintegration during their later assembly into a contact binary.”>>

[saturno2]

Where New Horizons is
In the Beyond
A new year with a fantastic exploration
Of an object so far away

[orin stepanek]

Thanks Art

[bystander]

New Horizons Reveals Entirely New Kind of World
JHUAPL | SwRI | NASA | New Horizons | 2019 Jan 02

Images of the Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule unveil the very first stages of solar system's history

The first color image of Ultima Thule, taken at a distance of 85,000 miles (137,000 kilometers) at 4:08 Universal Time on January 1, 2019, highlights its reddish surface. At left is an enhanced color image taken by the Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC), produced by combining the near infrared, red and blue channels. The center image taken by the Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) has a higher spatial resolution than MVIC by approximately a factor of five. At right, the color has been overlaid onto the LORRI image to show the color uniformity of the Ultima and Thule lobes. Note the reduced red coloring at the neck of the object. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

---

Scientists from NASA's New Horizons mission released the first detailed images of the most distant object ever explored — the Kuiper Belt object nicknamed Ultima Thule. Its remarkable appearance, unlike anything we've seen before, illuminates the processes that built the planets four and a half billion years ago. ...

The new images — taken from as close as 17,000 miles (27,000 kilometers) on approach — revealed Ultima Thule as a "contact binary," consisting of two connected spheres. End to end, the world measures 19 miles (31 kilometers) in length. The team has dubbed the larger sphere "Ultima" (12 miles/19 kilometers across) and the smaller sphere "Thule" (9 miles/14 kilometers across).

The team says that the two spheres likely joined as early as 99 percent of the way back to the formation of the solar system, colliding no faster than two cars in a fender-bender. ..."

Data from the New Year's Day flyby will continue to arrive over the next weeks and months, with much higher resolution images yet to come.

[bystander]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

[bystander]

New Ultima Thule Discoveries from New Horizons
NASA | JHUAPL | SwRI | New Horizons | 2019 Jan 03

The New Horizons science team created the first stereo image pair of Ultima Thule. This image can be viewed with stereo glasses to reveal the Kuiper Belt object's three-dimensional shape. The images that created the stereo pair were taken by the Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) at 4:23 and 5:01 Universal Time on January 1, 2019 from respective ranges of 38,000 miles (61,000 kilometers) and 17,000 miles (28,000 kilometers), with respective original scales of 1017 feet (310 meters) and 459 feet (140 meters) per pixel. (Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI)

---

Data from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which explored Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule earlier this week, is yielding scientific discoveries daily. Among the findings made by the mission science team in the past day are:

• Initial data analysis has found no evidence of rings or satellites larger than one mile in diameter orbiting Ultima Thule.
• Data analysis has also not yet found any evidence of an atmosphere.
• The color of Ultima Thule matches the color of similar worlds in the Kuiper Belt, as determined by telescopic measurements.
• The two lobes of Ultima Thule — the first Kuiper Belt contact binary visited — are nearly identical in color. This matches what we know about binary systems which haven't come into contact with each other, but rather orbit around a shared point of gravity.

...
Data transmission from New Horizons will pause for about a week while the spacecraft passes behind the sun as seen from here on Earth. Data transmission resumes Jan. 10, starting a 20-month download of the spacecraft's remaining scientific treasures.

[orin stepanek]

Thanks; bystander! I watched PBS Nova yesterday and they showed how they came up with the size of Ultima Thule before even being able to see it! Was a very interesting show!

[neufer]

'Plato's Cave Allegory' by Markus Maurer

---

Thanks; bystander! I watched PBS Nova yesterday and they showed how they came up with the size of Ultima Thule before even being able to see it! Was a very interesting show!

<<The Allegory of the Cave, or Plato's Cave, was presented by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work Republic to compare "the effect of education (παιδεία) and the lack of it on our nature". Plato has Socrates describe a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them, and give names to these shadows. The shadows are the prisoners' reality. Socrates explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are not reality at all, for he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the manufactured reality that is the shadows seen by the prisoners. The prisoners manage to break their bonds one day, and discover that their reality was not what they thought it was

The allegory contains many forms of symbolism used to describe the illusions of the world. The cave represents the superficial world for the prisoners. The chains that prevent the prisoners from leaving the cave represent ignorance, meaning the chains are stopping them from learning the truth. The shadows that cast on the walls of the cave represent the superficial truth, which is an illusion that the prisoners see in the cave. The freed prisoner represents those in society who see the physical world for the illusion that it is.>>

[BDanielMayfield]

I agree Art. A book I've been discouraged from quoting here had a similar thought, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

[bystander]

New Horizons' Newest and Best-Yet View of Ultima Thule
NASA | JHUAPL | SwRI | New Horizons | 2019 Jan 24

Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

---

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.

Obtained with the wide-angle Multicolor Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) component of New Horizons' Ralph instrument, this image was taken when the KBO was 4,200 miles (6,700 kilometers) from the spacecraft, at 05:26 UT (12:26 a.m. EST) on Jan. 1 – just seven minutes before closest approach. With an original resolution of 440 feet (135 meters) per pixel, the image was stored in the spacecraft's data memory and transmitted to Earth on Jan. 18-19. Scientists then sharpened the image to enhance fine detail. (This process – known as deconvolution – also amplifies the graininess of the image when viewed at high contrast.)

The oblique lighting of this image reveals new topographic details along the day/night boundary, or terminator, near the top. These details include numerous small pits up to about 0.4 miles (0.7 kilometers) in diameter. The large circular feature, about 4 miles (7 kilometers) across, on the smaller of the two lobes, also appears to be a deep depression. Not clear is whether these pits are impact craters or features resulting from other processes, such as "collapse pits" or the ancient venting of volatile materials.

Both lobes also show many intriguing light and dark patterns of unknown origin, which may reveal clues about how this body was assembled during the formation of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago. One of the most striking of these is the bright "collar" separating the two lobes. ...

[orin stepanek]

Nice photo bystander; I hope a lot more come in soon!

[bystander]

New Horizons' Evocative Farewell Glance at Ultima Thule
NASA | JHU-APL | SwRI | New Horizons | 2018 Feb 08

Images Confirm the Kuiper Belt Object's Highly Unusual, Flatter Shape

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

New Data, New View (2014 MU69) ~ Credits: NASA/JHU APL/SwRI

---

An evocative new image sequence from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft offers a departing view of the Kuiper Belt object (KBO) nicknamed Ultima Thule – the target of its New Year's 2019 flyby and the most distant world ever explored.

These aren't the last Ultima Thule images New Horizons will send back to Earth – in fact, many more are to come -- but they are the final views New Horizons captured of the KBO (officially named 2014 MU69) as it raced away at over 31,000 miles per hour (50,000 kilometers per hour) on Jan. 1. The images were taken nearly 10 minutes after New Horizons crossed its closest approach point. ...

The newly released images also contain important scientific information about the shape of Ultima Thule, which is turning out to be one of the major discoveries from the flyby.

The first close-up images of Ultima Thule – with its two distinct and, apparently, spherical segments – had observers calling it a "snowman." However, more analysis of approach images and these new departure images have changed that view, in part by revealing an outline of the portion of the KBO that was not illuminated by the Sun, but could be "traced out" as it blocked the view to background stars.

Stringing 14 of these images into a short departure movie, New Horizons scientists can confirm that the two sections (or "lobes") of Ultima Thule are not spherical. The larger lobe, nicknamed "Ultima," more closely resembles a giant pancake and the smaller lobe, nicknamed "Thule," is shaped like a dented walnut. ...

viewtopic.php?p=289668#p289668

[orin stepanek]

Thanks bystander; either way, I think Ultima Thule is a strange beast! The two seem to be cemented together! You gotta admit; the enhanced picture looks like it has two white eyes! http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/New ... e=20190124

[BDanielMayfield]

Strange is right Orin. I wonder how the two parts managed to settle into that somewhat odd configuration, considering that there must be several more gravitationally compact arrangement possibilities.

Weird. It's almost as if when we rounded the far side of our Moon for the first time but we had found that it was flat instead of round on the backside.

I'll leave the obvious jokes to others...

[BDanielMayfield]

Now I'm hungry for walnut pancakes. Yum. IHOP should come up with a new menu item: the Ultima Thule frozen walnut pancake desert.

Bruce

[neufer]

I wonder how the two parts managed to settle into that somewhat odd configuration,
considering that there must be several more gravitationally compact arrangement possibilities.

It is very close to a configuration with the largest moment of inertia
thereby allowing for a stable slow spin.

Now I'm hungry for walnut pancakes. Yum.

IHOP should come up with a new menu item: the Ultima Thule frozen walnut pancake desert.

There is an Intergalactic House of Pancakes at the end of the Universe.

I have to agree that there must be other means of forming orange tholins than atmospheric processes, since Ultima Thule is reddish-brown. Perhaps the collision between Ultima and Thule released materials that coated both bodies with some material that later turned reddish-brown due to ultraviolet radiation from the Sun?

• Maple Syrup

[Fred the Cat]

In Snow Crash, I wanted Neal Stephenson to have a franchulate called the “International Church of Pancakes” where those seeking refuge could go, catch breakfast and receive some uplifting moral message. But no – just a sword fighting Hiro and skate boarding Y.T. hanging out in the Metaverse.

"New Horizons" in that dystopia would be passé.