[ad_1]
The data will be used to redirect NASA's New Horizons spacecraft
For the ancient Greco-Romans , the "Thule" "was the northernmost place on the charts.And then, in the Middle Ages, the" last Thule " became synonymous with the farthest place Now, this name is used to designate a space body located within the limits of the Solar System and which will be studied in a few days by Colombian astronomers.
Ultima Thule, whose name is Origin is 2014 MU69, is a small trans-Neptunian body of about 45 kilometers that August 3, shortly eclipses – for a light emission of 1.4 seconds – a star located about 1,300 light-years away from The phenomenon, called stellar occultation, will be observed by scientists in Colombia.
Recommended: With 79 moons, Jupiter is the planet in the solar system with more satellites
Valuable information for NASA
This brief observation will serve to learn more about Ultima Thule – as its mbad, its period of rotation, its diameter, its albedo and whether it is two bodies instead of one – All this new information will help us better understand the origins and evolution of our star system.
In addition, the data will be used to redirect NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which will visit the distant region. space corps after visiting Pluto in July 2015. The approach, which will take place in January next year, will approach about 3,500 kilometers – three times closer than that of Pluto – . With this approach, Ultima Thule would become the most distant and primitive object ever visited by a spaceship.
Ulima Thule traveling diagonally across a dense field of stars. and the noise in the background. NASA / ESA
"Ultima Thule is a very small object, so no telescope on Earth is able to see it directly.Only the powerful Hubble has reached it As a result, NASA will take advantage of the New Horizons meeting with Ultima Thule next year to approach and study it, "says Giovanni Pinzón, professor at the National Astronomical Observatory. from 19459009 . "But before, in order to be able to make an accurate approximation, it is necessary to take data such as those we will try to obtain on August 3 " , he adds
Telescope The South African takes the clearest image of the center of the Milky Way
Citizen Science of the Southern Hemisphere
Because of its location, The ancient space object can only be observed in the southern hemisphere. That's why NASA has chosen Senegal and Colombia to observe the shadow that will be produced by stellar occultation. This collaboration will also involve the National University of Colombia and the National and Autonomous University of Mexico – UNAM – who hopes to discover more objects in the belt from Kuiper, even miners to Ultima Thule.
"This initiative consists in setting up temporary observatories to study the occultation on August 3. In the African country there will be 21 stations and in Colombia, seven others. different points and each will have a team of three people, who will operate telescopes with mirrors over 14 to 16 inches in diameter, with which they will try to observe the occultation, "explains Pinzón
This impressive video summarizes the formation of the entire universe and the Earth in 10 minutes
The departments where the concealment will be visible will be Chocó, Antioquia, Caldas, Tolima, Cundinamarca, Santander and Arauca The event will be an excellent opportunity to encourage citizen science.
According to the scientist, the event will be important because the information obtained will help fill the gaps that exist in the theory of the origin of our star neighborhood. "At its inception about 4,500 million years ago, the Solar System was made up of a primitive Sun surrounded by a disk from which the planets evolved. this observation will serve to understand many more details about what happened during the childhood of the Sun, "he added.
Thanks to the data collected by the probe New Horizons, during the nine days that lasted its incursion, the scientists discovered that in Pluto there are glaciers, mountains, dunes , mountain ranges; and also the traces of an ocean below the surface.
Victor Román
This story was originally published in N + 1, adding science
[ad_2]
Source link
