NASA received a snapshot of "snowman from space"

The New Horizons space shuttle transmits to the Earth a snapshot of the most distant land object to which spacecraft have ever come.

Ultima Thule, formerly known as the MU69 2014 asteroid, is located at a distance of 6.5 billion km from Earth, reports Depo.ua and Science Alert.

The image was obtained using a multicolor wide-angle visible camera (MVIC), which was part of the New Horizons toolbox, when the probe was at a distance of 6700 km from the asteroid. The image of an asteroid looking like a snowman was recorded in the memory of the on-board computer and transmitted to Earth on January 18 and 19. The scientists then processed the image to improve the small details.

The photo shows not only a large crater of about 7 km in diameter on the smallest "sphere" of the asteroid, but also the heterogeneity of the cosmic body.

However, the new picture is far from the last. researchers will have access; The New Horizons spacecraft took hundreds of photos and recorded many more data during the flight.

"Next month, better colors and images will be improved, which we hope will help solve a lot of Ultima Thule's problems," Alan said. Stern, who leads the New Horizons mission.

When New Horizons flew over Pluto in July 2015, it took about 15 months to send all its data to Earth. In the case of Mu69, it takes about 20 months to send everything that was recorded during the flight. The long wait will be due to the equipment and the remote location of New Horizons.

NASA built its own spacecraft in the early 2000s and launched it from Earth in 2006. Thus, although the New Horizons systems are fully operational, the electronic system itself is obsolete from about 15 to 20 years old. The weak signal from the satellite radar antenna is another bottleneck. At the present time, its output power is about 15 W, a quarter of the standard 60W incandescent lamp.

Another problem is that data is transmitted over a distance of more than 6.5 billion kilometers. At this distance, each bit of digital data sent in the form of radio waves propagating at the speed of light travels more than six hours to reach the antennas on Earth. The New Horizons team expects to see color photographs in February

"There is no doubt that two half Ultima Thules are of different geological origin, and we will soon have better photos. in February, "added Alan Stern.