The first flyby of the NASA Kuiper belt reveals the ancient secrets of Ultima Thule

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NASA's New Horizons mission team has released the results of the first flyby of the Kuiper belt. She explores the mysterious formation of Ultima Thule and gives details of her ancient past.

The New Horizons Science Paper, published May 17 in Science, analyzed the first sets of data collected during the 2019 New Year flyover of the New Horizons Space Shuttle with the subject of the Kuiper Belt called 2014 MU69, also known as Ultima Thule. Scientists have discovered that Ultima Thule was not an object of space, but that its composition, development, and geology were more complex than expected, says a NASA press release titled New Horizons.

"We are looking at the well-preserved remains of the ancient past," New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, said in a press release. "There is no doubt that the discoveries made on Ultima Thule will advance the theories of solar system formation."

According to the team, Ultima Thule is a binary contact because it has two lobes of different shape. It is about 22 km long and consists of a large, strangely flat lobe (Ultima) that connects to a slightly more rounded lobe (Thule) at a time called the "neck". How do the two lobes create the strange shape of Ultima Thule? a mystery because it could be related to how they grew billions of years ago.

Similar to other binary worlds of the Kuiper Belt, it is likely that these lobes were orbiting around in the past, until a "soft" fusion process connects them. Scientists say that for this to happen, the bulk of the orbital momentum of the binary would have disappeared for objects to merge. However, scientists do not know if Ultima and Thule ejected from other lobes that formed with them to dissipate energy and minimize their orbit or if the aerodynamic forces of gas in the old nebula solar were to blame.

The surface features of the Ultima Thule are also distinctive: it features bright spots, hills, craters and pits. The largest depression on Ultima Thule is five miles in diameter, which the team dubbed the Maryland crater, which could have been created as a result of an impact event. Some smaller pits on Ultima Thule may have developed due to materials falling into underground spaces.

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And probably the last stereo image of Ultima Thule – the first rock humanity has ever visited. It was an unmanned tour, but I think we all felt like we were there, in the New Horizons spacecraft, looking out the window as we were flying 4 billion kilometers from planet Earth, a speed of about 36,000 miles an hour – yes, you read that right – 36,000 miles an hour. This image is the result of the work of hundreds of very clever people from NASA for at least 15 years, under the direction of Alan Stern, who led the mission – originally for Pluto – but who explores now further to the forefront of the solar system. . Enjoy ! Parallel view above, crossed view of the eyes below. I must point out that this is not a conversion, but a REAL stereoscopic pair, consisting of images taken a few minutes apart while the New Horizons probe was flying over the object , "looking" from the side. I'll have to check that, but I guess the baseline between the two views is a few thousand miles. »Credits: NASA New Horizons jhuapl / SWRI – Bri

An article shared by Brian Harold May (@brianmayforreal) on

In terms of color and composition, the Kuiper Belt object resembles others found in the region: it has a bright red hue and, according to NASA, it is the reddest object of the external solar system visited by a spaceship. It is interesting to note that its rich red color could have been caused by a change of organic materials on its surface. New Horizons scientists have found evidence of organic molecules, methanol and ice on Ultima Thule.

Data transmission from overflight will continue until the end of the summer of 2020. Until then, New Horizons will continue to take new observations of additional objects in the Kuiper Belt.

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