Everybody remembers New Horizons, right? The probe, launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in January 2006, did a truly historic flyby of Pluto on July 14, 2015, passing at only 12,472 km (7,750 mi) from the dwarf planet’s icy surface, before continuing its course to the Kuiper Belt (I have written about it in detail. See this and this, for example).
Now, after a long hibernation, New Horizon woke up again one week ago in preparation for its next rendezvous. Its target? Another frozen body located at the edge of the Solar System, MU69, recently nicknamed Ultima Thule. (In case you wonder, the name comes from the Ancient Greek and indicates the place located the furthest North. Later on, in the medieval period, it was used to indicate something really out of the charts. Sure that MU69 qualifies for it.)
The challenges of this new missions are immense.
“New Horizons is incredibly far from Earth right now, which makes communicating with the spacecraft a lengthy process. A radio signal takes about 12 hours to travel to and from the spacecraft — three hours longer than the round-trip signal time at Pluto. Over the next six months, the spacecraft will be collecting a lot of data, too. The mission team will be uploading commands every couple of weeks, instructing the vehicle to compress and erase the data to make room on the vehicle’s computer. That means they’ll have a lot of work and a lot of waiting to do.” (Read the article here).
The encounter is due to happen on January 1st, 2019. Happy New Year, New Horizon!
While we wait for new, amazing imagery, let’s enjoy the last flyby on Pluto:
As ever – I love this article, Steph! It is an amazing time to be alive, given how humanity is extending ever further into space…
I agree, Sarah! There are so many things going on in this sense right now. Difficult not to be excited 🙂
Another thrilling discovery on our horizon… Thanks for sharing! 🙂