Science! "The PI's Perspective: We Did It -- The Bullseye Flyby of Ultima Thule!"

[NRaleighLiberal]

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/PI-Perspectives.php?page=piPerspective_01_17_2019

As I suspect everyone who follows this blog knows, on New Year's Day, the New Horizons team successfully completed the flyby exploration of an ancient Kuiper Belt object we nicknamed Ultima Thule (officially called 2014 MU69).

As a result — and for the first time — a primordial Kuiper Belt object (KBO) has been explored, and now the data have begun to rain down to Earth. A handful of images were sent back during flyby week; then we had to pause Jan. 4-9 because New Horizons, as seen from Earth, slipped into the solar corona (as it does every January), hampering communications. But on Jan. 10 the data began to flow again, and over the next several months, hundreds of images and spectra and other precious Ultima Thule datasets, now stored in New Horizons' solid-state memory, will be sent home.

There are many places to read about the results we've already obtained, but I want to summarize just a few. For a detailed overview of the first science results, see the abstract for my invited talk at the 50th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, to be held in Houston this March. That report elaborates on several key results, including that Ultima Thule (UT)...

is clearly a contact binary of two roughly spheroidal worldlets that gently merged billions of years ago, with much to teach us about the formation era of the planets.

has no satellites or rings or atmosphere (at least in the early data returns).

is clearly red, but shows little color difference between its two lobes.

shows a variety of distinct and fascinating surface reflectivity markings, including a remarkably bright "neck" between the two lobes.

And, by the way, my report is just one of 40 abstracts that our team submitted for the conference, containing many, many more findings.

snip - more at the link including pictures. Figured we needed to have a little science break from the big breaking trump cohen lies news!

[hunter]

1. Science and engineering rock!

[Stargazer09]

2. Thank you for the science break!

I love how the New Horizons team managed to pull off such amazing feats of science and engineering.

Ultima Thule is so far away, and so incredibly tiny, that it’s almost impossible to believe the little spacecraft zooming by would be able to capture anything beyond a blurry photo. I am in awe of the team’s abilities!

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. Kick...it's a new day!