ARLA/CLUSTER: Sonda da NASA New Horizons faz "voo rasante" na cintura de Kuipe ao asteróide Ultima Thule nos confins do Sistema Solar

[João Costa > CT1FBF]

https://youtu.be/zlGoy--ioWQ
New Horizon's Next Target - First Image of Ultima Thule

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New Horizons chega a Ultima Thule

Depois de ter passado por Plutão em 2015 e revelado as mais detalhadas
imagens sobre o mais distante planeta do sistema solar, a New Horizons vai
agora ainda mais longe, passando pelo mais distante objecto a ser
explorado, chamado Ultima Thule.

Com cerca de 30 km e uma forma bastante irregular, Ultima Thule faz parte
dos milhões de objectos que compõem a cintura de Kuiper e a visita da New
Horizons ajudará a compreender melhor a sua composição e existência.

Situado a cerca de 6.5 mil milhões de quilómetros, a sonda passará a
"somente" 3500 km deles - o que equivale a um "voo rasante" - após o qual,
se tudo correr bem, começarão a ser enviados os dados recolhidos. Um
processo que irá demorar bastante tempo - 20 meses, pelo menos -
considerando que a esta distância a sonda consegue enviar dados a uma
velocidade de apenas 1kbps. Para dar uma ideia, uma imagem de 1MB demorará
mais de 2 horas a ser transmitida... Sendo que a recepção da primeira
imagem após esta passagem é esperada para esta quarta-feira.

Caso tudo corra bem, a New Horizons ainda terá 11 kg de combustível que
poderá ser utilizado para ir espreitar outro objecto que esteja ao seu
alcance.

Fonte: Aberto Até de Madrugada

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Spacecraft flies past most distant world ever studied by humankind

Sky News reports a NASA spacecraft has flown past the most distant world
ever studied by humankind - sparking jubilant celebrations from scientists.

The New Horizons spacecraft paid a visit to the tiny, icy world of Ultima
Thule, which lies one billion miles beyond Pluto, in the early hours of New
Year's Day.

Roughly 20 miles long and shaped like a giant peanut, the mysterious object
lies four billion miles from Earth.

It will take an estimated 10 hours for flight controllers to find out
whether the spacecraft has survived the close encounter - and will find out
if the pass was successful at about 3pm UK time.

Clear images of the cosmic body are expected to emerge in the coming days.

As crowds cheered at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in
Maryland, the mission's lead scientist Alan Stern said: "Go New Horizons!
Never before has a spacecraft explored something so far away."

John Spencer, from the Southwest Research Institute, added: "Now it is just
a matter of time to see the data coming down."

The spacecraft was aiming to collect about 900 images in a matter of
seconds as it travelled past from a distance of approximately 2,000 miles.

Prior to the flypast, Mr Stern had said: "[Ultima Thule] is in such a deep
freeze that it is perfectly preserved from its original formation.

"Everything we are going to learn about Ultima - from its composition to
its geology to how it was originally assembled, whether it has satellites
and an atmosphere and those kinds of things - are going to teach us about
the original formation conditions of objects in the solar system."

The milestone comes hours after a different NASA spacecraft broke records
by successfully going into orbit around an ancient asteroid.

Read the full Sky News story
https://news.sky.com/story/leap-for-humankind-as-nasa-spacecraft-orbits-bennu-an-ancient-asteroid-11595867
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