Weird new landmarks on Ultima Thule come into focus with sharpest image yet
Michael Irving
2 hours ago
On January 1 the New Horizons probe whizzed past Ultima Thule, a tiny world on the fringe of the solar system. Data is still streaming back to Earth, and now the latest image shows the object closer and in higher resolution than ever before. With that improved clarity comes some intriguing new landmarks on the rocky surface.
This image was snapped from a distance of 4,200 mi (6,700 km) from the object – much closer than the 17,000 mi (27,000 km) of the previous batch of images. It was taken by New Horizons' wide-angle Multicolor Visible Imaging camera (MVIC) with an original resolution of 440 ft (135 m) per pixel, before the science team sharpened the image.
This closer look reveals a few new details about Ultima Thule. It's quite a lumpy-looking world, dotted with small pits measuring up to 0.4 mi (0.7 km) wide. Then there's a particularly big one on the smaller of the two lobes – which the team has nicknamed "Thule" – that stretches 4 mi (7 km) wide. The team isn't sure whether these pockmarks were made by impacts with smaller objects, if they're collapse pits, or the result of volatile materials escaping into space from below the surface.
Another interesting feature is the brighter marks, which the team can't explain yet. The most obvious example is the "collar" that forms the seam between the two lobes of the object.
More:
https://newatlas.com/clearest-ultima-thule-image-new-landmarks/58210/
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Contributed by
Elizabeth Rayne
@quothravenrayne
Jan 24, 2019
NASA might have not promised us jetpacks, but when the image of Ultima Thule that wowed the planet was released on New Year’s Day, they did promise something more HD. And we got that HD pic very shortly thereafter, but now we have an even better one.
What you’re looking at here is the clearest image yet of Kuiper Belt Object 2014 MU69, or Ultima Thule (which is looking more and more like BB-8 every time the resolution gets sharper), which New Horizons beamed back almost a month ago. To think that human eyes are seeing an ancient object 4.13 billion miles out in the solar system—which also happens to be the first KBO ever explored by a spacecraft—is pretty amazing.
"This new image is starting to reveal differences in the geologic character of the two lobes of Ultima Thule, and is presenting us with new mysteries as well," said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern in a blog post. "Over the next month there will be better color and better resolution images that we hope will help unravel the many mysteries of Ultima Thule."
New Horizons’ hypersensitive Ralph instrument captured this glamour shot with its wide-angle Multicolor Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) component. It's capable of viewing anything from the visible spectrum to the otherwise invisible infrared. Ralph mostly uses its superhero sight to map the surface geology and composition of objects like Ultima Thule, though it can also look into their atmosphere.
More:
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/the-newest-image-of-ultima-thule-is-even-more-hi-res
Doesn't that look more natural?
4 billion miles away, and they flew the spacecraft perfectly to image an object just 21 miles in length.
Hopefully, the color version will arrive sometime soon!
