01-08-2019, 10:47 AM
There’s a good program right now on PBS NOVA - Pluto and Beyond:
https://youtu.be/CebYPQcgOc8
The episode begins with a summary of the New Horizons flyby of Pluto, and it’s current approach on Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule. At about the 20 minute mark in the video, the discovery of Kuiper Belt objects in 1992 by two astronomers on Mauna Kea is shown in some detail. Before their findings, the area at the edge of our solar system was thought to be empty. Now we know it’s filled with thousands of fragments, one of which, Ultima Thule was visited a week ago (Jan 1] by New Horizons. The first fuzzy photos revealed a binary object looking something like a two part snowman. As the spacecraft approached*, the pictures become even clearer:
https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/new-ho...ima-thule/
All of this thanks to research conducted 27 years ago on Mauna Kea. Imagine what the next quarter century will bring.
* Thanks PaulW - I changed will be visited to was visited, and approaches to approached. New Horizons reached Ultima Thule on Jan 1st, the delayed images and data continue to arrive here on earth, and will for another 20 months.
https://youtu.be/CebYPQcgOc8
The episode begins with a summary of the New Horizons flyby of Pluto, and it’s current approach on Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule. At about the 20 minute mark in the video, the discovery of Kuiper Belt objects in 1992 by two astronomers on Mauna Kea is shown in some detail. Before their findings, the area at the edge of our solar system was thought to be empty. Now we know it’s filled with thousands of fragments, one of which, Ultima Thule was visited a week ago (Jan 1] by New Horizons. The first fuzzy photos revealed a binary object looking something like a two part snowman. As the spacecraft approached*, the pictures become even clearer:
https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/new-ho...ima-thule/
All of this thanks to research conducted 27 years ago on Mauna Kea. Imagine what the next quarter century will bring.
* Thanks PaulW - I changed will be visited to was visited, and approaches to approached. New Horizons reached Ultima Thule on Jan 1st, the delayed images and data continue to arrive here on earth, and will for another 20 months.
“We do this thing not because it is easy, but because we thought it would be easy.”