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JHUAPL / NASA
A new horizon halfway between Uranus and Neptune
In the absence of apparent dangers, NASA's New Horizons satellite received the positive signal to stay on the right way to Ultima Thule approaches the "flyby" on January 1 by the Kuiper-sized object located more than a thousand million kilometers from Pluto – the farthest pbadage in history.
After almost three weeks of sensitive research By the rings, small moons and other potential dangers around the object, New Horizons principal investigator, Alan Stern, has given the green light for the probe to remain on the road that would take it to about 3,500 kilometers from Ultima instead of a detour avoiding dangers that would have pushed it three times further. Traveling at 50,700 km / h, a particle as small as a grain of rice would be deadly for a probe the size of a piano.
The hazard observation team, consisting of twelve members, used the most telescopic camera. New Horizons, the LORRI instrument (long-range reconnaissance imager) for in search of potential hazards . The decision to keep New Horizons in its initial trajectory, or to direct it to a more distant flyby, which would have produced less detailed data, had to be taken this week as the last opportunity to maneuver the probe to another. The trajectory was the December 18th.
In 2011, New Horizons trained its hazard monitoring team to prepare for crossing Pluto. She fears that newly discovered small moons of Pluto could spread dangerous debris
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
This image shows New Horizons position on December 18th. The green segment of the line shows the journey of the probe since its launch; red indicates its future direction.
Intense research reveals no potential risk for the mission ; the team opted for the original flight plan and New Horizons conducted its historical exploration of the Pluto system in July 2015.
This year, the team of observation of the dangers conducted similar badyzes for the pbadage. by Ultima Thule, officially designated 2014 MU69. Any ring-shaped structure reflecting only 0.5 millionth of the sun would be visible on the images, as well as any moons larger than 3 km in diameter, but the team would not. did not see it ]. Scientists will continue to search for rings or moons very close to Ultima, but these objects do not represent a danger.
"Our team has the impression of traveling with the ship, as if we were sailors perched in the tonnage of a ship's basket, looking for hazards," says Mark Showalter, head of the SETI Institute Risk Team. "The team fully agreed that the spacecraft should stay on the closest course, and the Mission Management accepted our recommendation."
"The probe now has an ideal trajectory more than three times closer than when it pbaded Pluto," Stern adds, "Ultima, let's go!"
New Horizons will make its historic approach to 39; Ultima Thule at 01:33 on January 1 (Portuguese time) – the first "flyby" of an object the size of Kuiper [19659014]
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