Tag: 2014 MU69
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On eve of New Horizons flyby, Ultima Thule still holding onto its mysteries
This image shows the first detection of 2014 MU69 (nicknamed “Ultima Thule”), using the highest resolution mode (known as “1×1”) of the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) aboard the New Horizons spacecraft. Three separate images, each with an exposure time of 0.5 seconds, were combined to produce the image shown here. All three images were…
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Live coverage: New Horizons flyby target comes into focus
Live coverage of the New Horizons spacecraft’s flyby of 2014 MU69 — also known as Ultima Thule — in the Kuiper Belt a billion miles beyond Pluto. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.
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NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft heads for New Year’s encounter with distant world
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Artist’s concept of the New Horizons spacecraft approaching a Kuiper Belt Object. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI Three years and a billion miles past Pluto, NASA’s New Horizons probe is on the verge of at least one more pioneering, once-in-a-lifetime milestone: a New Year’s Day flyby of a small body known…
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12 years after launch, New Horizons probe zeroes in on mysterious Ultima Thule
Artwork shows NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft silhouetted by the sun during its New Year’s Day encounter with an icy object, or objects, known as Ultima Thule. (NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI Illustration / Steve Gribben) Act Two of the 12-year-old New Horizons mission to Pluto and the solar system’s icy Kuiper Belt is heating up, with…
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New Horizons on track for historic New Year’s Day flyby of Ultima Thule
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Artist’s concept of the New Horizons spacecraft’s flyby of 2014 MU69, also known as Ultima Thule. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/Steve Gribben Thirteen years outbound from Earth and a billion miles past Pluto, NASA’s New Horizons probe is healthy and on course for a…
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Two NASA probes catch first glimpses of primordial targets
On Aug. 17, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft obtained the first images of its target asteroid Bennu from a distance of 1.4 million miles (2.2 million km), or almost six times the distance between the Earth and Moon. This cropped set of five images was obtained by the PolyCam camera over the course of an hour for…
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NASA’s New Horizons and OSIRIS-REx spacecraft spot their deep-space targets
The picture on the left was created by adding 48 different exposures from the LORRI camera on NASA’s New Horizons probe. The picture on the right has been processed to subtract the light from background stars, leaving an icy object known as Ultima Thule shining dimly in the crosshairs. (NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI Photo)…
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NASA’s New Horizons probe wakes up from its robotic slumber for post-Pluto flyby
An artist’s conception shows NASA’s New Horizons probe silhouetted by the sun, with the Kuiper Belt object known as Ultima Thule or 2014 MU69 dominating the scene. (NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI / Steve Gribben) The mission operations team for NASA’s New Horizons probe has awakened the spacecraft from its robotic hibernation, and now it’ll…
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NASA’s New Horizons probe wakes up for New Year’s Day flyby
Artist’s concept of the New Horizons spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI Speeding through the outer reaches of the solar system nearly 3.8 billion miles from Earth, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has awakened from a five-and-a-half month slumber, ready for a second act after its 2015 flyby of Pluto with a New Year’s Day encounter with a primordial…
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New Horizons spacecraft’s next distant destination gets a nickname
This image of Ultima Thule, or 2014 MU69, was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2014. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI The frozen faraway miniature world targeted for a high-speed flyby by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft on Jan. 1, 2019, now has a nickname: Ultima Thule. Formally known as 2014 MU69, the robotic space probe’s next target…