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NASA published a photo of the distant asteroid Ultima Thule, who fabricated the New Horizons space probe, Science Alert
It should be noted that this space object Ultima Thule, who is officially known as the 2014 Asteroid MU69, located 6.5 kilometers from Earth.
Scientists obtained this snapshot through a Wide Angle Camera (MVIC), part of the New Horizons toolbox, when the spacecraft was 6,700 kilometers from the asteroid.
On The photo is clearly visible not only on a large crater of about 7 km in diameter on the smallest "sphere" of the asteroid, but also on neodymium The scintillation of the cosmic body [19659003] However, the new photo is far from the last one to which 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.
Remember that NASA built its own spacecraft in the early 2000s and launched it from Earth in 2006.
In this regard, the New Horizons system is fully operational. , the electronics themselves are obsolete for about 15-20 years. Another weakness is the signal of the aeronautical radionavigation antenna. At the present time, its output power is about 15 watts, a quarter of the standard 60W incandescent lamp.
In addition, another problem is that the data comes from # 39, a distance of more than 6.5 billion kilometers. At this distance, each bit of digital data transmitted 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 photos in February.
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