Page 28 - AT

A28 SCIENCE
Friday 28 december 2018

Pluto explorer ushering in new year at more distant world

By MARCIA DUNN and sinkholes, but its sur-
AP Aerospace Writer face also could prove to
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) be smooth. As for color, Ul-
— The spacecraft team tima Thule should be darker
that brought us close-ups than coal, burned by eons
of Pluto will ring in the new of cosmic rays, with a red-
year by exploring an even dish hue. Nothing is certain,
more distant and mysteri- though, including its orbit,
ous world. so big that it takes almost
NASA’s New Horizons 300 of our Earth years to
spacecraft will zip past the circle the sun. Scientists
scrawny, icy object nick- say they know just enough
named Ultima Thule (TOO- about the orbit to intercept
lee) soon after the stroke of it.
midnight. COMPARING FLYBYS
One billion miles beyond New Horizons will get con-
Pluto and an astounding 4 siderably closer to Ultima
billion miles from Earth (1.6 Thule than it did to Pluto:
billion kilometers and 6.4 2,220 miles versus 7,770
billion kilometers), Ultima miles (3,500 kilometers vs.
Thule will be the farthest 12,500 kilometers). At the
world ever explored by same time, Ultima Thule is
humankind. That’s what 100 times smaller than Plu-
makes this deep-freeze tar- to and therefore harder to
get so enticing; it’s a pre- track, making everything
served relic dating all the more challenging. It took 4
way back to our solar sys- This image made available by NASA on Friday, July 24, 2015 shows a combination of images ½ hours, each way, for flight
tem’s origin 4.5 billion years captured by the New Horizons spacecraft with enhanced colors to show differences in the controllers at Johns Hop-
ago. No spacecraft has vis- composition and texture of Pluto’s surface. kins’ Applied Physics Lab
ited anything so primitive. Associated Press in Laurel, Maryland, to get
“What could be more ex- tion deep inside the Kuiper craft will zoom within 2,200 POSSIBLY TWINS a message to or from New
citing than that?” said proj- Belt. As distant as it is, Pluto miles (3,500 kilometers) of Scientists speculate Ultima Horizons at Pluto. Compare
ect scientist Hal Weaver of is barely in the Kuiper Belt, Ultima Thule, its seven sci- Thule could be two objects that with more than six
Johns Hopkins University, the so-called Twilight Zone ence instruments going full closely orbiting one anoth- hours at Ultima Thule.
part of the New Horizons stretching beyond Nep- blast. The coast should be er. If a solo act, it’s likely 20 WHAT’S NEXT
team. tune. Ultima Thule is in the clear: Scientists have yet miles (32 kilometers) long It will take almost two years
Lead scientist Alan Stern of Twilight Zone’s heart. to find any rings or moons at most. Envision a baked for New Horizons to beam
Southwest Research Insti- ULTIMA THULE around it that could batter potato. “Cucumber, what- back all its data on Ultima
tute in Boulder, Colorado, This Kuiper Belt object was the spacecraft. New Hori- ever. Pick your favorite Thule. A flyby of an even
expects the New Year’s discovered by the Hubble zons hurtles through space vegetable,” said astrono- more distant world could
encounter to be riskier and Space Telescope in 2014. at 31,500 mph (50,700 kph), mer Carey Lisse of Johns be in the offing in the 2020s,
more difficult than the ren- Officially known as 2014 and even something as mi- Hopkins. It could even be if NASA approves anoth-
dezvous with Pluto: The MU69, it got the nickname nuscule as a grain of rice two bodies connected by er mission extension and
spacecraft is older, the Ultima Thule in an online could demolish it. “There’s a neck. If twins, each could the spacecraft remains
target is smaller, the flyby vote. In classic and medi- some danger and some be 9 miles to 12 miles (15 ki- healthy. At the very least,
is closer and the distance eval literature, Thule was suspense,” Stern said at lometers to 20 kilometers) in the nuclear-powered New
from us is greater. the most distant, northern- a fall meeting of astrono- diameter. Horizons will continue to
NEW HORIZONS most place beyond the mers. It will take about 10 MAPPING MISSON observe objects from afar,
NASA launched the space- known world. When New hours to get confirmation Scientists will map Ultima as it pushes deeper into
craft in 2006; it’s about the Horizons first glimpsed the that the spacecraft com- Thule every possible way. the Kuiper Belt. There are
size of a baby grand piano. rocky iceball in August it pleted — and survived — They anticipate impact countless objects out there,
It flew past Pluto in 2015, was just a dot. Good close- the encounter. craters, possibly also pits waiting to be explored.q
providing the first close-up up pictures should be avail-
views of the dwarf planet. able the day after the flyby.
With the wildly successful ARE WE THERE YET? Satellite images show collapse
flyby behind them, mission New Horizons will make its
planners won an exten- closest approach in the of Indonesian island volcano
sion from NASA and set wee hours of Jan. 1 —
their sights on a destina- 12:33 a.m. EST. The space- JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) satellite taken before and killed at least 430 people
— Radar data from satel- after the eruption show the on Saturday evening. Indo-
lites, converted into imag- volcano’s southwestern nesian authorities are warn-
es, shows Indonesia’s Anak flank has disappeared. ing people to stay away a
Krakatau island volcano Dave Petley, head of re- kilometer (less than a mile)
is dramatically smaller fol- search and innovation at from the Sunda Strait coast-
lowing a weekend eruption Sheffield University who an- line because of the risk of
that triggered a deadly alyzed similar images from another tsunami. JAXA’s
tsunami. Satellite photos a European Space Agency post-eruption image shows
aren’t available because satellite, said they support concentric waves radiat-
of cloud cover but radar the theory that a land- ing from the island, which
images from a Japan Aero- slide, most of it undersea, experts say is caused by
space Exploration Agency caused the tsunami that ongoing eruptions. q