NASA Spaceship Zooms Towards Furthest Object Humans Have Ever Explored

NASA Spaceship Zooms Towards Furthest Object Humans Have Ever Explored

 

The nerdiest New Year party in the solar system is about 4 billion miles away from the Earth, where a lonely, intrepid spacecraft is going to be the most distant object that humans have ever discovered.

There is no champagne in this dim and remote area, where a halo of the snowy iceberg, called the Kuiper belt, surrounds the outer edge of the solar system. There will be no rendering of "Auld Lang Syne" (in space, no one can hear you singing).

But there is a minivan-shaped spacecraft called New Horizons. And there is a penalty, the primitive rock which is a rocky remnant of the origin of the solar system, means "beyond the boundaries of the known world".

At the birthplace of New Horizon, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, in Laurel, Maryland, gathered to study the scores of space scientists - and celebrate. While his companions Earthlings were counted till midnight, they were spending time till 12.33 in the morning, when the space shuttle would be closest to its goal.

In the images taken on Sunday night, Ultima Thule appeared slightly more than a long white blur against the darkness of space.

But a shocked "Ooh" crashed through the APL audit when deputy project scientist John Spencer guessed a blurred image on one screen. Until that time, no one had ever seen the Kuiper belt object more than the single pixel of light.

Spencer said, "This is just a first glimpse that is getting better faster than here,". "We are going to learn very soon and we can not wait anymore."

This is the biggest and busiest moment for the New Horizons team because three years ago detailed close-up pictures of the spacecraft were captured off Pluto's previous space shuttle.

Project Manager of the Mission, Helen Winters said that the space shuttle operators are sleeping on the chocolate and sleeping on the air mattress in the APL so that they can make the most of every minute, until New Horizons reach its goal. Navigator has kept an eye on potential threats, which can be difficult to spot in this dim and distant corner of the solar system.

But because light signals take more than six hours to cross the vast distance between the cooper belt and the earth, it is already too late to change the course of spacecraft.

The delay of the same light time means that the scientists will not know whether the flyby did the job till Tuesday morning or not.

Winters laughs if he thinks he will sleep Monday night. "Ask me again tomorrow."

As the midnight approached, the crowd in APL got into a festive atmosphere. The scientists and their guests dazzled with a sparkling blue light and dined on crudites in a room. Little children have long slept between chairs on their beds and eat cooked cookies from buffet.

"It's like having a dream come true," said Chuck Fields, a podcast producer from Indianapolis, who gave nine hours to attend Monday's program. He was dressed in a bright bright blazer and with images of planets, galaxies and sun-bearing images. His wife Don wore matching pants.

"You can find anything on Amazon," Don said laughing. Chuck said, "Allen (Stern) said that it was going to be a celebration." "So it was, okay, let's celebrate!"

Five-and-a-half-year-old Benjamin Holder focused on an image of New Horizons and was the closest rock due to the encounter.

"I used to be a cat named Toolie," Benjamin said. "But the thumb that you are looking for is not on my cat's name."

His uncle Eric Lacak-Chenan made the character of laughter. As a member of the optical navigation team of spacecraft, he dedicates the better part and half of last year to track that "Thule rock".

Two nights ago, he and his colleagues were woken up to 4 o'clock in the morning, so that the final set of commands could be developed to send new horizons before their encounter. Those orders - they hope - will ensure that the space shuttle does not remember its shot to take an image of its goal.

"Basically, it was like, 'This is where the Ultima is, this is the place where you point out." Best wishes, "" Lessons-Cheenesh said. "Now it is dependent on New Horizons."

The spacecraft, which was launched in 2006, is the first NASA mission designed specifically to detect external solar systems - a field called Scientific Allan Stern, "a scientific wonderland." In the Kuiper belt, where the sunlight is as strong on the earth, it is 0.05 percent more, and the temperature varies near zero, the primitive building blocks of planets are unchanged for 4.6 billion years.

Stern said, "This history is making what we are doing, more than one way." Not only this, Ultima Thule has detected the distant planetary object so far, it is probably also the most primitive. Contrary to the planets, which are replaced by geothermal forces in their inner parts, and asteroids, which are warmed by the sun, it is believed about ultima thule that it is present in a "deep freeze" since it was formed.

Stern said, "This is probably the best time capsule to understand the birth of our solar system and its present planets."

Difficult to encounter with Ultima, among the more difficult feats made by NASA. Great distance from Earth and Sun means that scientists should keep up with long communication intervals and devices should work with very little light. Ultima Thule was searched only four years ago, and its orbits and surroundings are still not well known. And New Horizons is a 13-year-old space shuttle; Its electric generator produces just one quarter of the light bulb, which means that operators should carefully prioritize the use of the remaining fuel.

"I can not promise you success," said Stern on Monday afternoon. "We are putting pressure on the capabilities of this space shuttle."

Sheer speed and distance amaze the mind. Ultima Thule is a percentage of Pluto's size, and New Horizons should get around four times the image. At the moment of the closest approach, the spacecraft will move at a speed of 32,000 miles per hour. To track Ultima Thule, its cameras should be swirled as it passes; Otherwise, all will see that there is a smear between black.

Many experiments have been made for a brief encounter in the New Horizons team. The particle and dust detector will investigate the environment surrounding the Ultima. Three of the spacecraft cameras will take pictures in color and black and white in an attempt to map the small world and determine its structure.

Spencer said that on Monday he is particularly interested in those detailed color photographs, which can illuminate "special classical" about "cool classical" Kuiper belt objects, such as Ultima Thule, which will never change dramatic geological changes. Do not pass. Although these rocks should be made mainly of ice, but all of these appear red when seen through the Hubble Space Telescope. It may be that there are impurities in the ions, which change colors by colliding with cosmic rays, Spencer said - one possibility is that he hopes to pin by seeing the content of recently exposed material.

"Who knows?" he said. "Anything is possible when you are searching for a new class of the world that you have never seen before."