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It was a golden week for space exploration. In the early hours of 2019, NASA flew over an asteroid in the confines of the solar system and collected unpublished data on the type of blocks forming planets such as the Earth. The Chinese have come to the face of the Moon that we never see and promise to give more and more letters. Good flights
New horizons to explore, new horizons never seen before. Marvelous limitless in an endless sky. We will never, never reach them. That's why we have to try. "Brian May, who until now had been badociated only with the Queen, donned his astrophysicist sweater and composed the soundtrack.Science did all the rest, And that was not enough.In the early hours of the new year, NASA successfully completed the first resolution of 2019: flying over a celestial object beyond Pluto in the Kuiper Belt – an icy region where formations of the primitive solar system are preserved The confirmation that everything was going well and that the probe New Horizons was in good health arrived 10 hours later and Ultima Thule entered into History: it is about The most primitive celestial object ever reached by Humanity.blocks at the origin of rocky planets like the Earth.
The complete data should take 20 months, but NASA, more and more more engaged (and creative) in communicating his achievements – even with the closure of offices in the paralyzes already typical of the United States while the New Year's budget is agreed – did not skimp on the images to emphasize the importance and difficulty of the mission. "The Ultima Thule is only about the size of Washington DC, so reflective with garden soil, and lit by a sun 1900 times weaker than a day on Earth." We pursued it in the dark at a speed 51,000 km / hour, "said the researchers at the press conference. New Horizons, a probe that had already seduced the world three years ago by revealing the geology to form a kind of heart on the surface of Pluto, rose to about 3500 km from Ultima Thule, three times closer of his last target. We therefore expect high-resolution images of the 6 billion kilometer land encounter, even if the first ones may have seemed a little shaky. It was thought to be a simple block shaped like a pin, but it's still a binary contact system, a sort of "snowman" composed of two blocks. As scientists do not want to speak with words, said Alan Stern, the mission's chief investigator, the body calls "Ultima" and the "Thule" head.
The description of the union had poetry. 4.5 billion years ago, in the early days of the formation of the solar system, rocks of varying sizes turned against each other until two slowly move closer, squeezing one against the other "like two moored ships" and thus staying "at rest". in the other, in an icy environment and practically in the same position, until today. The two blocks, virtually spherical, will be tight against each other at a speed of 1 or 2 kilometers to the hour. "The speed at which we park the car." "They were hitting at that speed, they would not even need to complete the friendly statement," said Jeff Moore, Geological Aspects Manager of the New Horizons Mission. . About this new world, we already know that the ice has a reddish surface, few craters and different geological formations, aspects that will be deepened in the coming months. Expectations are great. "This will revolutionize our knowledge of planetary science," said Stern.
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