Meanwhile, 6.5 billion kilometres from Earth....

[Itsallaguess]

New Horizons: Nasa waits for signal from Ultima Thule probe -

The American space agency's New Horizons probe is in the midst of an encounter with a giant ball of ice and dust nicknamed Ultima Thule. The flyby, taking place 6.5 billion km from Earth, is the most distant ever exploration of a Solar System object.

New Horizons should be filling its memory banks right now with a swathe of photos and other scientific data. Once the probe has gone past Ultima, it will turn to radio home a status report that should arrive at 15:28 GMT.

This initial contact ought to give controllers a good idea of how New Horizons performed as it swept over the 30km-wide world just 3,500km from its surface.

"Never before has a spacecraft explored something so far away." Assuming all turns out well, New Horizons can begin to downlink the gigabytes of stored data, with the first close-up images set for release on Wednesday.

Ultima is in what's termed the Kuiper belt - the band of frozen material that orbits the Sun more than 2 billion km further out than the eighth of the classical planets, Neptune; and 1.5 billion km beyond even the dwarf planet Pluto, which New Horizons visited in 2015.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46699737

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[AndyPandy]

They might be regretting their sponsorship deal with TalkTalk, though

The data rates from New Horizons' 15-watt transmitter are also glacial as a consequence. Information trickles into Nasa's big antenna network at a maximum of 1,000 bits per second. [having taken 6 hours to make the journey].

[panamagold]

New Horizons: Nasa waits for signal from Ultima Thule probe -


New Horizons should be filling its memory banks right now with a swathe of photos and other scientific data. Once the probe has gone past Ultima, it will turn to radio home a status report that should arrive at 15:28 GMT.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Not long to go now!

What a blast if, when received, the report kicked off with This

[bungeejumper]

New Horizons Inc.
Customer reference: U Thule

Dear Mr Thule, we're sorry you were out when we called. We have left your parcel with the neighbours. Thank you for your business.

[nimnarb]

This is so extraordinary, just can't get my head around this. Many times look up at night with my Sky Guide App and just marvel at it all. No way are we alone. One day going to treat myself to a portable telescope or something that's a lot better than binoculars. Any ideas?

[Itsallaguess]

NASA have confirmed that the fly-past by the probe has been successful -

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/dec/31/new-horizons-heads-for-flyby-of-space-rock-ultima-thule

There should be some hi-res pictures in the next couple of days.

Truly extraordinary stuff....

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[kiloran]

There should be some hi-res pictures in the next couple of days.

Truly extraordinary stuff....

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

In a couple of days, it might send back as many as 22 pixels. Hardly hi-res

--kiloran

[Lootman]

This is so extraordinary, just can't get my head around this. Many times look up at night with my Sky Guide App and just marvel at it all. No way are we alone. One day going to treat myself to a portable telescope or something that's a lot better than binoculars. Any ideas?

Anything that is easily portable won't be a serious instrument of exploration. You need a mount for any magnification powers over 10. And what you really want for deep sky exploration is a lot of light-capturing power, which means a large lens or mirror, which is heavy.

Then there is the focal length, which means a serious telescope is long, although cadioptric scopes reduce that through the clever use of extra mirrors.

I have a 6 inch refractor and a 8 inch cadioptric, both mounted on sturdy mounts. Ideally you'd want an equatorial mount which follows bodies as they (appear to) move across the sky. And a slow-motion motor or drive, and perhaps some software so you can find an object in the first place.

Good kit is neither lightweight, portable nor cheap, I'm afraid

[Itsallaguess]

There should be some hi-res pictures in the next couple of days.

In a couple of days, it might send back as many as 22 pixels. Hardly hi-res

Ach! - I was going off this final section of the linked article -

The first images to be beamed home from Ultima Thule will be small and grainy, but a day or two after the encounter, Nasa hopes to have more impressive pictures from the probe.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/dec/31/new-horizons-heads-for-flyby-of-space-rock-ultima-thule

But now having looked into it a bit more, I think they're overstating the case there, and it looks like we will indeed have to wait a while longer for the higer-resolution pictures that we can hopefully look forward to.

Thanks for pointing this out - but it's exciting stuff, nonetheless!

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[kiloran]

Ach! - I was going off this final section of the linked article -

The first images to be beamed home from Ultima Thule will be small and grainy, but a day or two after the encounter, Nasa hopes to have more impressive pictures from the probe.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/dec/31/new-horizons-heads-for-flyby-of-space-rock-ultima-thule

But now having looked into it a bit more, I think they're overstating the case there, and it looks like we will indeed have to wait a while longer for the higer-resolution pictures that we can hopefully look forward to.

Thanks for pointing this out - but it's exciting stuff, nonetheless!

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Oh, I didn't read it all, I was just making a smart-alec comment. Perhaps my team's 2-0 lead has gone to my head

--kiloran

[scotia]

They keep saying that the data rate is a glacial 1,000 bits per second. What's glacial about that? A major utility which I (once) worked for recovered data at 75 bits per second from its (hundreds of earth bound) outstations. I produced software which allowed them to interrogate, in test mode, these outstations from a DOS PC, and when I had to produce a Windows Laptop version, I had to search for a USB to Serial adapter that was capable of going down to 75 bps!
I'm exceedingly impressed by a data rate of 1,000 bps from the edge of our solar system!

[Itsallaguess]

It looks like the first pictures are coming through...

It looks like a snowman!



The ice world known as Ultima Thule has finally been revealed.

A new picture returned from Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft shows the little world to be two objects joined together - to give a look like a "snowman".

The US probe's images acquired as it approached Ultima hinted at the possibility of a double body, but the first detailed picture from Tuesday's close flyby confirms it.

New Horizons encountered Ultima 6.5 billion km from Earth. The event set a record for the most distant ever exploration of a Solar System object. The previous mark was also set by New Horizons when it flew past the dwarf planet Pluto in 2015.

But Ultima is a further 1.5 billion km further out. It's in a region of the Solar System known at the Kuiper belt.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46742298

Anyone got a carrot?

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[kiloran]

It looks like the first pictures are coming through...

It looks like a snowman!

Itsallaguess

Amazing what they can do with 22 pixels

--kiloran