[ad_1]
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft received a signal that flew near the farthest point of our solar system.
According to the BBC, the probe has moved very rapidly, near the asteroid "Ultima Toli", which consists of a giant snowball of about 30 km wide.
The space probe, located 6.5 kilometers from the Earth, is the farthest distance to explore an object in the solar system.
The probe will provide NASA with a wealth of information, images and scientific data over the next few months.
An agency branch in Spain has picked up the signal from the New Horizons probe.
Staff at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland were applauded as the first signs of the probe arrived.
Read also: Look at the history of the flag with black holes in the space
"We have a very good spacecraft," said Alice Bauman, the mission's operations manager, explaining that the vehicle will send more images and space data into the space in the airspace. next days.
This first contact gives the observers a good idea of the performance of the New Horizons spacecraft when it flies 3,500 kilometers from the Tulli surface.
The asteroid in orbit is located in the Kuiper Belt, 1.5 billion kilometers from Pluto, which the New Horizons visited in 2015.
It is estimated that there are thousands of objects in the Kuiper belt, such as an asteroid in orbit, and their icy state certainly bears the evidence of the state of the solar system there about 4.6 billion years ago.
"Last night, the new American satellite New Horizons has conducted the longest exploration of the history of humanity and has it incredibly accomplished," said Alan Stern, senior scientist at New Horizons.
A rock tug was sent last night and does not contain much more details about previous photos, so it's more ambiguous to know if a single rock looks like an asymmetric peanut or if two rocks are spinning around one of l & # 39; other. "He said.
The new Horizons probe has been designed to approach the surface of the asteroid Ulythma, over a distance of 3,500 km, observing its rotation, its geological nature, its structure and its environment.
[ad_2]
Source link
