Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Tuesday 18 February 2020
NASA's space snowman reveals secrets: few craters, no water

By MARCIA DUNN pancake shape scientists gets to investigate. Power-
AP Aerospace Writer reported a year ago. The ful ground telescopes still
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. research team likened the under construction will help
(AP) — NASA's space snow- somewhat flattened spheri- survey this part of the sky.
man is revealing fresh se- cal forms to the shape of Emerging technology will
crets from its home far be- M&Ms. enable scientists to de-
yond Pluto. No rings or satellites have velop a mission that could
More than a year after its been found. The light cra- put a spacecraft in orbit
close encounter with the tering suggests Arrokoth around Pluto, 3 billion miles
snowman-shaped object, dates back to the forma- (5 billion kilometers) away,
the New Horizons space- tion of the solar system 4.5 according to Stern. After
craft is still sending back billion years ago. It likely a few years, that same
data from more than 4 bil- was created by a slow, spacecraft could be sent
lion miles (6.4 billion kilome- gentle merger between even deeper into the Kui-
ters) away. two separate objects that per Belt to check out other
"The data rate is painfully possibly were an orbiting dwarf planets and objects,
slow from so far away," said pair. The resulting fused he said.
Will Grundy of Lowell Obser- body is considered a con- The New Horizons scientists
vatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, tact binary. reported their latest find-
one of the lead authors. This kind of slow-motion ings at the annual meeting
Astronomers reported hookup likely arose from of the American Associa-
Thursday that this pristine, collapsing clouds in the so- tion for the Advancement
primordial cosmic body lar nebula, as opposed to of Science, as well as in
now called Arrokoth — the intense collisions theorized three separate papers in
most distant object ever to form these planetesi- the journal Science.
explored — is relatively mals, or little orbiting bod- David Jewitt of the Univer-
smooth with far fewer cra- ies. sity of California, Los Ange-
ters than expected. It's also New Horizons flew past les, who was not involved
entirely ultrared, or highly Arrokoth on Jan. 1, 2019, in the studies, said a flyby
reflective, which is com- more than three years af- mission like New Horizons,
monplace in the faraway ter the spacecraft visited where encounters last just
Twilight Zone of our solar Pluto. Originally nicknamed a few days, is hardly ideal.
system known as the the This Jan. 1, 2019 image from NASA shows Arrokoth, the farthest, Ultima Thule, the object "For future missions, we
Kuiper Belt. most primitive object in the Solar System ever to be visited by a received its official name need to be able to send
Grundy said in an email spacecraft. in November; Arrokoth spacecraft to the Kuiper
that to the human eye, Ar- Associated Press means sky in the language Belt and keep them there"
rokoth would look less red of the Native American in orbit around objects,
and more dark brown, sort which is an estimated 22 was roughly that of the city. Powhatan people. Jewitt wrote in a compan-
of like molasses. The reddish miles (36 kilometers) long As for the snowman shape, Launched in 2006, the ion piece in Science. That
color is indicative of organ- tip to tip. At a news confer- it's not nearly as flat on spacecraft is now 316 mil- would allow "these intrigu-
ic molecules. ence Thursday in Seattle, the backside as previously lion miles (509 million kilo- ing bodies to be studied
While frozen methane is New Horizons' chief scientist thought. Neither the small meters) beyond Arrokoth. in stunning geological and
present, no water has yet Alan Stern of Southwest Re- nor big sphere is fully round, The research team is look- geophysical detail," he
been found on the body, search Institute said its size but far from the flatter ing for other potential tar- noted.q

UN: Antarctic high temp records will

take months to verify

BERLIN (AP) — Record high research base measured ted to Prof. Randall Cerve-
temperatures reportedly a temperature of 18.3 de- ny, a researcher at Arizona
measured in Antarctica will grees Celsius (nearly 65 State University who exam-
take months to verify, the degrees Fahrenheit) Feb. 6 ines reported temperature
U.N. weather agency said on a peninsula that juts out records for WMO.
Sunday. from Antarctica toward the Cerveny then shares the
A spokesman for the World southern tip of South Amer- data with a wider group
Meteorological Organiza- ica. The previous record of scientists who "will care-
In this undated file photo, a lonely penguin appears in Antarc- tion said the measurements there was 17.5 degrees cel- fully evaluate the available
tica during the southern hemisphere's summer season. made by researchers from sius (63.5 degrees Fahren- evidence (including com-
Associated Press Argentina and Brazil ear- heit) in March 2015. parisons to surrounding
lier this month have to un- Last week, researchers stations) and debate the
dergo a formal process to from Brazil claimed to have merits and problems of the
ensure that they meet in- measured temperatures of observation," said Fowler.
ternational standards. 20.75 degrees Celsius on The evaluation normally
"A formal decision on an island off the peninsula takes six to nine months,
whether or not this is a re- — beating the record for after which Cerveny would
cord is likely to be several the entire Antarctic region "formally either accept
months away," said Jona- of 19.8 Celsius in January or reject the potential ex-
than Fowler, the WMO 1982. Fowler said both of treme," giving official WMO
spokesman. the new measurements approval to the new re-
Scientists at an Argentine would need to be transmit- cord, he said.q