New images from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft — taken from as close as 17,000 miles (27,000 km) on approach — revealed Ultima Thule as a contact binary.
Ultima Thule measures 19 miles (31 km) in length and consists of two connected spheres.
New Horizons team members dubbed the larger sphere ‘Ultima’ (12 miles, or 19 km, across) and the smaller sphere ‘Thule’ (9 miles, or 14 km, across).
“Two spheres likely joined as early as 99% of the way back to the formation of the Solar System, colliding no faster than two cars in a fender-bender,” they said.
“New Horizons is like a time machine, taking us back to the birth of the Solar System,” said Dr. Jeff Moore, New Horizons Geology and Geophysics team lead.
“We are seeing a physical representation of the beginning of planetary formation, frozen in time.”
“Studying Ultima Thule is helping us understand how planets form — both those in our own Solar System and those orbiting other stars in our Milky Way Galaxy.”
According to the researchers, Ultima Thule is spinning like a propeller with the axis pointing approximately toward New Horizons.
This explains why, in earlier images taken before the object was resolved, its brightness didn’t appear to vary as it rotated.
“This flyby is a historic achievement,” said New Horizons principal investigator Dr. Alan Stern, from Southwest Research Institute.
“Never before has any spacecraft team tracked down such a small body at such high speed so far away in the abyss of space. New Horizons has set a new bar for state-of-the-art spacecraft navigation.”
Source: Sci News
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