science

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft gets the 'all-clear' for its historic New Year's Day flyby


The New Horizons spacecraft is now officially on the best course to reach its target on New Year’s Day.

NASA scientists leading the mission have given New Horizons the ‘all clear’ after conducting nearly three weeks of searches for potential hazards standing between it and Ultima Thule – a Kuiper Belt object that sits about a billion miles past Pluto.

The current path has the closest trajectory of all the potential routes, and will bring New Horizons just 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) of the object.

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NASA scientists leading the mission have given New Horizons the ‘all clear’ for the optimal flyby path (center circle)  after conducting nearly three weeks of searches for potential hazards standing between it and Ultima Thule 

NASA scientists leading the mission have given New Horizons the ‘all clear’ for the optimal flyby path (center circle)  after conducting nearly three weeks of searches for potential hazards standing between it and Ultima Thule 

New Horizons’ Principal Investigator Alan Stern gave the go-ahead for the craft to remain on the optimal flyby path this week.

The other path, plotted out to avoid hazards, would have put New Horizons three times farther than the primary route.

‘Our team feels like we have been riding along with the spacecraft, as if we were mariners perched on the crow’s nest of a ship, looking out for dangers ahead,’ said hazards team lead Mark Showalter, of the SETI Institute.

‘The team was in complete consensus that the spacecraft should remain on the closer trajectory, and mission leadership adopted our recommendation.

‘The spacecraft is now targeted for the optimal flyby, over three times closer than we flew to Pluto. Ultima, here we come!’

New Horizons’ team held on until the very last minute to make the call, using the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) to scout out any potential hazards.

Given the speed at which the craft is flying – roughly 31,500 miles (50,700 kilometers) per hour – a collision with even a particle as small as a grain of rice could be ‘lethal,’ NASA says.

New Horizons has spent more than a decade hurtling through the Solar System since it launched on January 19, 2006 and passed Pluto in 2015. New Horizons is so far adrift of planet Earth now that its messages take up to six hours to reach us, despite them travelling at the speed of light

New Horizons has spent more than a decade hurtling through the Solar System since it launched on January 19, 2006 and passed Pluto in 2015. New Horizons is so far adrift of planet Earth now that its messages take up to six hours to reach us, despite them travelling at the speed of light

Ultima Thule is a Kuiper Belt object that sits one billion miles past Pluto. Its official name is 2014 MU69. Scientists aren't yet sure if Ultima is a single body, a binary pair, or a system of many objects. Artist's impression 

Ultima Thule is a Kuiper Belt object that sits one billion miles past Pluto. Its official name is 2014 MU69. Scientists aren’t yet sure if Ultima is a single body, a binary pair, or a system of many objects. Artist’s impression 

The last opportunity to maneuver the spacecraft out of the way was Dec 18.

But, with the all-clear from the hazards team, New Horizons is continuing on the best route to Ultima Thule.

Ultima Thule got its nickname earlier this year after the space agency solicited suggestions from the public.

Its official name is 2014 MU69.

The nickname comes from medieval literature and refers to a distant, unknown world.

After the flyby, however, it will likely receive another, more formal name. It remains unclear if Ultima is a single body, a binary pair, or a system of many objects.

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft  spotted its next flyby target earlier this year from more than 100 million miles away. In the image, Ultima is enveloped in countless stars, appearing as just a tiny speck amidst the bright spots. The yellow box shows its predicted location

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft spotted its next flyby target earlier this year from more than 100 million miles away. In the image, Ultima is enveloped in countless stars, appearing as just a tiny speck amidst the bright spots. The yellow box shows its predicted location

WHAT’S NEXT FOR NASA’S NEW HORIZONS SPACECRAFT?

The spacecraft that gave us the first close-up views of Pluto now has a much smaller object in its sights.

New Horizons is now track to fly past a recently discovered, less than 30-mile-wide object out on the solar system frontier.

The close encounter with what’s known as 2014 MU69 would occur in 2019. It orbits nearly 1 billion miles (1.6 billion kilometers) beyond Pluto.

Nasa and the New Horizons team chose 2014 MU69 in August as New Horizons’ next potential target, thus the nickname PT-1. Like Pluto, MU69 orbits the sun in the frozen, twilight zone known as the Kuiper Belt.

This illustration provided by NASA shows the New Horizons spacecraft. The probe whipped past Pluto in 2015 and is headed to 2014 MU69 for an attempted 2019 flyby of the tiny, icy world on the edge of the solar system

This illustration provided by NASA shows the New Horizons spacecraft. The probe whipped past Pluto in 2015 and is headed to 2014 MU69 for an attempted 2019 flyby of the tiny, icy world on the edge of the solar system

MU69 is thought to be 10 times larger and 1,000 times more massive than average comets, including the one being orbited right now by Europe’s Rosetta spacecraft.

On the other end, MU69 is barely 1 percent the size of Pluto and perhaps one-ten-thousandth the mass of the dwarf planet. So the new target is a good middle ground, according to scientists.

The spacecraft was recently approved for its extended mission, allowing it to continue on its path toward the object deeper in the Kuiper Belt.

It’s expected that New Horizons will make its approach to the ancient object on January 1, 2019.

New Horizons just recently caught its first glimpse of the distant target this past summer, when it was still 100 million miles away.

In the image, Ultima appears enveloped in countless stars, showing up as just a tiny speck amidst the bright spots.

‘The image field is extremely rich with background stars, which makes it difficult to detect faint objects,’ said Hal Weaver, New Horizons project scientist and LORRI principal investigator from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab.

‘It really is like finding a needle in a haystack. In these first images, Ultima appears only as a bump on the side of a background star that’s roughly 17 times brighter – and easier to see – as the spacecraft gets closer.’ 

 



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