{"id":17980,"date":"2019-02-24T11:00:12","date_gmt":"2019-02-24T16:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=17980"},"modified":"2019-02-23T20:40:46","modified_gmt":"2019-02-24T01:40:46","slug":"new-horizons-high-res-images-of-ultima-thule-new-documentary-summiting-the-solar-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=17980","title":{"rendered":"New Horizons: High-res images of Ultima Thule + New documentary “Summiting the Solar System”"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Friday, the New Horizons mission<\/a> released the highest resolution images yet of the Kuiper Belt<\/a> object Ultima Thule<\/a>, which the probe flew by on January 1st: Spot On! New Horizons Spacecraft Returns Its Sharpest Views of Ultima Thule<\/a><\/p>\n

The mission team called it a “stretch goal” \u2013 just before closest approach, precisely point the cameras on NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft to snap the sharpest possible pics of the Kuiper Belt object nicknamed Ultima Thule, its New Year’s flyby target and the farthest object ever explored.<\/em><\/p>\n

Now that New Horizons has sent those stored flyby images back to Earth, the team can enthusiastically confirm that its ambitious goal was met.<\/em><\/p>\n

These new images of Ultima Thule \u2013 obtained by the telephoto Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) just 6\u00bd minutes before New Horizons’ closest approach to the object (officially named 2014 MU69) at 12:33 a.m. EST on Jan. 1 \u2013 offer a resolution of about 110 feet (33 meters) per pixel. Their combination of high spatial resolution and a favorable viewing angle gives the team an unprecedented opportunity to investigate the surface, as well as the origin and evolution, of Ultima Thule \u2013 thought to be the most primitive object ever encountered by a spacecraft.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Bullseye!” said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). “Getting these images required us to know precisely where both tiny Ultima and New Horizons were \u2014 moment by moment \u2013 as they passed one another at over 32,000 miles per hour in the dim light of the Kuiper Belt, a billion miles beyond Pluto. This was a much tougher observation than anything we had attempted in our 2015 Pluto flyby.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Highest Resolution Image of Ultima Thule: The most detailed images of Ultima Thule — obtained just minutes before the spacecraft’s closest approach at 12:33 a.m. EST on Jan. 1 — have a resolution of about 110 feet (33 meters) per pixel. Their combination of higher spatial resolution and a favorable viewing geometry offer an unprecedented opportunity to investigate the surface of Ultima Thule, believed to be the most primitive object ever encountered by a spacecraft. Full size image and caption<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And here is a clip of the fly-by:<\/p>\n