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On the first day of the year, NASA 's New Horizons spacecraft flew over the 2014 MU69 object, better known as Ultima Thule. Since then, the probe, although it has already moved away from the Transnetunian object in question, continues to send data to the space agency, and the latest news is the first photo in good resolution of this small space body which no one knew existed before the year. 2014.
Among the first discoveries of Ultima Thule by New Horizons, there is the confirmation of the reddish color of its surface, as well as its shape, which has been compared to that of a snowman or snowman. an hourglbad turning the space. Nevertheless, we can be sure that the object is actually the junction of two smaller objects, which must be struck at a speed so slow that they provided an adjustment without much deterioration.
The photo was clicked while the spacecraft was 6,700 km from the surface of Ultima Thule, barely seven minutes before the closest possible approach. That is to say we can expect even more detailed and, of course, more colorful images for the coming weeks.
According to NASA's official statement, the oblique illumination of this image reveals new topographic details along the boundary between day and night on the surface of the object, visible at the top of the Photo. These details include wells up to 0.7 km in diameter and a deep depression of about 4 km in diameter in the lower lobe. It is not yet clear whether these sinks are even craters of impact or features resulting from other natural processes.
"This new image begins to reveal differences in the geological character of both lobes of Ultima Thule, and it also introduces us to new mysteries," said Alan Stern, senior director. mission investigator. This also ensures that images with more resolution and color will arrive in February.
Because New Horizons is about 6.34 billion kilometers from the Earth, away from the Sun by more than 50,700 km / h, a radio signal takes six hours and nine minutes to reach our planet after have been issued by the spacecraft and many data will still be sent over the next twenty months.
This new image represents for the moment the clearest view of this ancient object of the Kuiper belt being the first little Trans-Netoon object explored by New Horizons, who studied Pluto and his moons in 2015. "First", it is possible that NASA could extend the ship's mission for a few more years with the objective of studying other small worlds of this region that preserve intact pieces of rocks remaining from the formation of the solar system.
The ship, launched in 2006, had its modified trajectory to finalize the observation of Pluto in 2015, a year after the discovery of Ultima Thule. The ship still has fuel to last and remain operational until the 2030s and many interesting objects are waiting to be studied closely in the Kuiper belt – which, for the moment, only New Horizons can do because it is walking already (19659010) source: NASA
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