{"id":14922,"date":"2017-01-23T00:02:47","date_gmt":"2017-01-22T16:02:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/new-horizons-to-continue-mission-of-discovery-with-kuiper-belt-encounter\/"},"modified":"2017-01-23T00:02:47","modified_gmt":"2017-01-22T16:02:47","slug":"new-horizons-to-continue-mission-of-discovery-with-kuiper-belt-encounter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/new-horizons-to-continue-mission-of-discovery-with-kuiper-belt-encounter\/","title":{"rendered":"New Horizons to continue mission of discovery with Kuiper Belt encounter"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Artist\u2019s impression of NASA\u2019s New Horizons spacecraft encountering a Kuiper Belt object. Credit: NASA\/JHUAPL\/SWRI\/Alex Parker<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Scientists planning the the next phase of NASA\u2019s New Horizons mission, a robotic craft that completed the first exploration of Pluto in 2015, are going into the flyby of a frozen, faraway city-sized clump of rock on New Year\u2019s Day 2019 armed with little knowledge of the target lurking around 4 billion miles (6.4 billion kilometers) from Earth.<\/p>\n

Some of the object\u2019s profile will be filled in by the time New Horizons reaches it, but mission managers expect many surprises as the spacecraft zips past 2014 MU69 \u2014 the target\u2019s official name \u2014 at a relative velocity of more than 9 miles per second (about 14 kilometers per second).<\/p>\n

The little world will become the most distant object ever visited by a spacecraft.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s going to look like a little blackberry with little lumps that all came together \u2026 or if it\u2019s going to be a fragment of some larger body with an interior cut on one side and not on the other side,\u201d said Will Grundy, a co-investigator on the New Horizons team from Lowell Observatory. \u201cBut it\u2019s going to be great fun, and this all starts happening at the end of next year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scientists are not sure of the object\u2019s exact size \u2014 it might be anywhere from 13 miles (21 kilometers) to 25 miles (40 kilometers) across, Grundy said \u2014 or its shape, spin rate, color, or whether 2014 MU69 has any moons or rings.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s basically a point source,\u201d Grundy said, referring to the object\u2019s appearance in images from the powerful Hubble Space Telescope. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen no companions, but we\u2019re not very sensitive to small companions or close-in companions. We don\u2019t really know what it\u2019s rotation period is. We don\u2019t really know what its light curve amplitude is. It looks like it might be red, but the error bars kind of include everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alan Stern, the New Horizon mission\u2019s principal investigator, said miniature worlds like 2014 MU69 are likely the leftover ice and rock fragments that formed larger objects like Pluto, the moons of some Uranus and Neptune, and other dwarf planets in the outer solar system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe small Kuiper Belt objects like (2014) MU69 that we\u2019re going to be flying out to in 2019 are thought to be the building blocks of the small planets in the Kuiper Belt, like Pluto and the others,\u201d Stern said in a Facebook Live event Jan. 19 highlighting the progress of the New Horizons mission.<\/p>\n

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In this sequence of images from June 2014, object 2014 MU69 is seen by the Hubble Space Telescope moving across a star field. Credit: NASA, ESA, SWRI, JHUAPL, and the New Horizons KBO Search Team<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Kuiper Belt is a ring of ancient icy remnants from the earliest part of the solar system\u2019s 4.6 billion-year history circling the sun beyond the orbit of Neptune. Its population includes continent-sized words like Pluto and the even-farther dwarf planet Eris, and perhaps hundreds of thousands of objects the size of 2014 MU69 or larger.<\/p>\n

New Horizons launched 11 years ago, on Jan. 19, 2006, flew by Jupiter for a speed boost in February 2007, and executed the first-ever close-up encounter with Pluto on July 14, 2015.<\/p>\n

The spacecraft\u2019s instruments, including a telescopic camera, a color imager, and composition-measuring spectrometers, found Pluto an unexpectedly exotic world with frozen nitrogen glaciers, a tenuous hazy atmosphere, and evidence of a possible liquid ocean and ice volcanoes.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing that we disecovered is that small planets can be just as complex as big planet, and that really blew away our expectations,\u201d Stern said Jan. 19. \u201cWe did not think that a planet the size of North America could be as complex as Mars or as the Earth, and yet that\u2019s what we found.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn addition, we also found that Pluto is geologically alive, even today, that it\u2019s making new surface units, and that there are glacial flows and other kinds of activity on the surface that we didn\u2019t think could happen on a small planet billions of years after its formation,\u201d Stern said. \u201cWe thought it would have cooled off by now, and run out of energy, but, in fact, it hasn\u2019t, and those two discoveries really changed the paradigm in planetary science and whet our appetite for future exploration of the Kuiper Belt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scientists always hoped to keep New Horizons going after its historic Pluto flyby, but they found no suitable targets for the mission\u2019s second act until a special search with Hubble in 2014 discovered two potential objects within reach of the spacecraft\u2019s limited fuel supply.<\/p>\n

In August 2015, a month-and-a-half after New Horizons zipped by Pluto, officials selected 2014 MU69 as the favored destination for the probe\u2019s extended mission. NASA formally approved the plan last year.<\/p>\n

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New Horizons\u2019s trajectory to its next target, the Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69. Credit: NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Earlier this month, Grundy told NASA\u2019s Small Bodies Advisory Group, a forum for researchers focused on asteroids, comets and related solar system objects, that ground controllers are beginning to erase the data recorders on the New Horizons spacecraft after the robot finished downlinking the last of the data it collected at Pluto.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a careful process because managers want to ensure nothing gets inadvertently deleted from the spacecraft\u2019s memory drives.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re working to erase the solid state recorders because we need to make room for new Kuiper Belt data,\u201d Grundy said. \u201cOf course, you don\u2019t want to jump the gun on that, but we need to make room, so we\u2019re having both the instrument teams look at what\u2019s on the ground, as well as the science teams. So it\u2019s both the producers and the consumers of the data who are checking off and saying, \u2018Yes, that really does look intact on the ground.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Scientists know the approximate size and orbital trajectory of the distant object now in New Horizons\u2019s sights, but little more.<\/p>\n

\u201cPluto\u2019s about the size of North America, and the next object is more like the size of the Chesapeake Bay or the Great Salt Lake,\u201d said Kelsi Singer, a member of the New Horizons geology and geophysics team from the Southwest Research Institute. \u201cThese smaller objects, we think, are probably more pristine and more primordial, so we\u2019re going to learn about the building blocks of the solar system by going there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Astronomers have studied 2014 MU69 for less than three years, leaving many questions about the distant destination unanswered.<\/p>\n

One piece of data sought by New Horizons scientists is the exact location and motion of the target.<\/p>\n

That will be aided by repeated observations by Hubble and the European Space Agency\u2019s Gaia observatory, which is surveying the entire sky to pinpoint the positions and movements of more than a billion stars, asteroids and other objects.<\/p>\n

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This global mosaic of Pluto was created from imagery from the New Horizons spacecraft\u2019s July 2015 flyby. Credit: NASA\/JHUAPL\/SWRI<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Planning for the complicated sequence of picture-taking, composition scans and other observations scientists want New Horizons to capture at 2014 MU69 is already underway.<\/p>\n

It took four years to develop the fine pointing commands, instrument activations, and fail-safe computer logic needed for the spacecraft\u2019s high-speed visit to Pluto. For the Jan. 1, 2019, encounter with 2014 MU69, scientists and engineers have 18 months to finalize their plans.<\/p>\n

Stern and Grundy said the ground team is working on two flyby scenarios for 2014 MU69.<\/p>\n

One of the flight plans would likely have New Horizons fly within 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers) of the object, a range that would allow the spacecraft\u2019s main camera to see features as small as buildings, Singer said.<\/p>\n

Officials have not picked a precise distance for the encounter. That will depend on updated orbit and motion data from Hubble and Gaia.<\/p>\n

Similar to the backup plan developed leading up to the Pluto flyby, Stern said the ground team will work on a bailout option for New Horizons in case the craft\u2019s cameras spot rings, moons or debris surrounding 2014 MU69 in the weeks before closest approach.<\/p>\n

In such a case, New Horizons could be steered on a path slightly farther from the object to ensure it does not collide with dust or ice. Such debris strikes could be fatal to the spacecraft at the projected flyby velocity.<\/p>\n

By mid-year, scientists hope to nail down an estimate for the target\u2019s rotation rate by analyzing Hubble data, but much of the flyby sequence will need to be designed before planners can incorporate that knowledge, Grundy said.<\/p>\n

Astronomers also plan to watch 2014 MU69 pass in front of a star later this year. The dimming of the background star, called a stellar occultation, could tell scientists more about the object\u2019s size and shape, and possibly reveal dust clouds, rings, or moons accompanying it.<\/p>\n

But the object\u2019s modest size mean the occultation will only be visible from a narrow band of territory. A network of astronomers around the world and NASA\u2019s airborne infrared observatory, known as SOFIA, will try to catch the act.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is going to be very challenging, but valuable,\u201d Grundy said of the Earth-based observing campaign.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, engineers at New Horizons\u2019s mission control are fine-tuning the probe\u2019s trajectory with a series of course correction maneuvers by the craft\u2019s rocket thrusters.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we learn more about the orbit of (2014) MU69 and know exactly where we need to head, we\u2019ll execute some more of these maneuvers, possibly as many as 10,\u201d said Helene Winters, New Horizons project manager at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.<\/p>\n

Four rocket burns in late 2015 did most of the retargeting, but engineers believe more are needed, beginning with a maneuver scheduled for Feb. 1, Winters said in the Facebook Live event last week.<\/p>\n

The science team also intends to take pictures of up to two dozen other known Kuiper Belt objects over the next year-and-a-half. The spacecraft will not get close to those bodies \u2014 they will be millions of miles away \u2014 but New Horizons will be much closer to them than any telescope.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first time we\u2019ve had essentially an astronomical observatory in the Kuiper Belt looking at objects that are too faint to study in this way from the Earth,\u201d said Stern, a scientist based at SWRI.<\/p>\n

Measurements of the solar wind and plasma environment in the outer solar system are also on the mission\u2019s docket.<\/p>\n

NASA has committed to fund the New Horizons mission through 2021, when all the data gathered from the January 2019 flyby should be back on the ground.<\/p>\n

It will take even longer to downlink science data from New Horizons after the visit to 2014 MU69 than the 15 months needed to return all the observations of Pluto. At the vast distance to the mission\u2019s next destination, it will take more than 12 hours for radio signals to travel the round-trip between the spaceraft and Earth, and the transmission rate will slow to a crawl.<\/p>\n

New Horizons could be granted another mission extension after 2021 to continue monitoring its surroundings as it escapes the solar system, following in the footsteps of the trailblazing Voyager probes.<\/p>\n

The craft draws on the heat from a plutonium power source for electricity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe spacecraft is about 400 million miles (643 million kilometers) beyond Pluto and some 3.5 billion miles (5.6 billion kilometers) from Earth, and it\u2019s doing just fine,\u201d said Glen Fountain, former project manager for New Horizons, during the Facebook Live event. \u201cAll the systems aboard are working. We have plenty of power to continue the mission out though the Kuiper Belt flyby we\u2019ll do later, and further beyond that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe power decreases as we get further away in time because the plutonium on-board has about an 80-year half-life, so it\u2019s slowly losing power, but we can still run until about the mid-2030s,\u201d Fountain said.<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artist\u2019s impression of NASA\u2019s New Horizons spacecraft encountering a Kuiper Belt object. Credit: NASA\/JHUAPL\/SWRI\/Alex Parker Scientists planning the the next phase of NASA\u2019s New Horizons mission, a robotic craft that completed the first exploration of Pluto in 2015, are going into the flyby of a frozen, faraway city-sized clump of rock on New Year\u2019s Day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2337,3226,898,1861,2173,2174,1561,2848],"class_list":["post-14922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-2014-mu69","tag-gaia","tag-hubble-space-telescope","tag-jhuapl","tag-kuiper-belt","tag-new-horizons","tag-planetary-science","tag-pluto"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14922"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14922\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}