That’s ~10 miles at a distance of ~10^8 miles.
Pretty impressive, but the sensitivity of LIGO is truly breathtaking. It’s not a directly comparable feat, but it can detect a fraction of the width of a proton at several kilometers, a factor of the order of 10^21.
It’s a contact binary, two asteroids fused together. Better pics here: The New Horizons spacecraft has sent back a photo of Ultima Thule - Vox
The search for a suitable candidate to send New Horizons to after Pluto is described in this twitter essay: https://twitter.com/Alex_Parker/status/1077986070128668674
Ok now it’s starting to look like the giant space amoeba from Star Trek… fissioning to make two giant space amoebas!
And now the amoebas just have to follow New Horizon’s path backwards to find Earth. Nice going NASA!
I’m hoping that NASA will continue to release pictures after the engines and antenna array are visible.
It looks a bit like the Lexx, after some serious damage.
No, no, no.
And now, the…amoebas…just have to….follow…New….Horizon’s…path…backwards to find….Earth!
If it is Trek, get with the program!
Sorry, get with…the program!
From the latest press release: The new images — taken from as close as 17,000 miles (27,000 kilometers) on approach — revealed Ultima Thule as a “contact binary,” consisting of two connected spheres. End to end, the world measures 19 miles (31 kilometers) in length. The team has dubbed the larger sphere “Ultima” (12 miles/19 kilometers across) and the smaller sphere “Thule” (9 miles/14 kilometers across). http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20190102
Pics taken from 18,000 miles. Closest approach is ~2200 miles so better pics should be forthcoming.
Not a hatch is sight, dammit.
Not sure why the smaller of the two is called “Ultima”. Wouldn’t that be more appropriate for the larger one?
Which brings up the general question of naming parts of contact binaries. What’s going to be the dividing line between both parts getting named and just saying it’s a potato?
(BTW: Total lunar eclipse coming up Jan 20-21. Visible in NA. Last total one for me for over 2 years.)
The larger one is called Ultima.
I’m not aware that any other known contact binaries have both parts named. I assume that they just used the fact that the object already had a two part name to give the parts separate names. And the names aren’t official in any case. They’re just nicknames/placeholders.
First time I learned of this rock, I thought they were talking about a Space 1999 revival. Are there long lost humans living there?
Doh. I was sure it was the other way and …
Well, okay then.
The little one would be Penultima.
We already heard from penultima – see post #4.
Today’s press release: January 3, 2019
New Ultima Thule Discoveries from NASA’s New Horizons
Data from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, which explored Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule earlier this week, is yielding scientific discoveries daily. Among the findings made by the mission science team in the past day are:
[ul]
[li]Initial data analysis has found no evidence of rings or satellites larger than one mile in diameter orbiting Ultima Thule.[/li][li] Data analysis has also not yet found any evidence of an atmosphere.[/li][li] The color of Ultima Thule matches the color of similar worlds in the Kuiper Belt, as determined by telescopic measurements.[/li][li] The two lobes of Ultima Thule — the first Kuiper Belt contact binary visited — are nearly identical in color. This matches what we know about binary systems which haven’t come into contact with each other, but rather orbit around a shared point of gravity.[/li][/ul]
“The first exploration of a small Kuiper Belt object and the most distant exploration of any world in history is now history, but almost all of the data analysis lies in the future,” said Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
Data transmission from New Horizons will pause for about a week while the spacecraft passes behind the sun as seen from here on Earth. Data transmission resumes Jan. 10, starting a 20-month download of the spacecraft’s remaining scientific treasures.
“Those of us on the science team can’t wait to begin to start digging into that treasure trove,” said Stern. New Horizons completed the farthest flyby in history when it came within about 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) of Ultima Thule at 12:33 a.m. EST on Jan. 1, zooming past the object at more than 32,000 miles (51,000 kilometers) per hour.
The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, designed, built and operates the New Horizons spacecraft, and manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. The Southwest Research Institute, based in San Antonio, leads the science team, payload operations and encounter science planning. New Horizons is part of the New Frontiers Program managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Follow the New Horizons mission on Twitter and use the hashtags #UltimaThule, #UltimaFlyby and #askNewHorizons to join the conversation. Live updates and links to mission information are also available on http://pluto.jhuapl.edu and www.nasa.gov.
32,000 miles per hour is about 9 miles per second.
The quote “At its most sensitive state, LIGO will be able to detect a change in distance between its mirrors 1/10,000th the width of a proton! This is equivalent to measuring the distance to the nearest star (some 4.2 light years) to an accuracy smaller than the width of a human hair!” is actually not right. Measuring a change in a quantity to some level is easier than measuring the quantity to that level of accuracy. What they did is impressive, but not that impressive.
They have collected more data, in spite of not being properly funded (geez, great timing). They have enough of the lead up images to put together an animation of the approach.
Pretty cool!
You still can’t see any hatches or antennae.