Heck, I joined only 3 months or so before you and was excited that someone here shared the same love for science and the exploration of space that I did. I was the 2nd reply to your OP, and I want to thank you for starting what has become a most remarkable thread. With more stunning scientific discoveries to come from this small spacecraft busy examining the outer reaches of our solar system and its immediate environs, who knows what awaits us? Pluto and its moons turned out to be nothing like NASA, the team at John Hopkins, and scientists around the world had hypothesized only a short time before. I hope @B-Bob returns for the New Years Day flyby and the discoveries that New Horizons will find and gradually tell us about, even if it's just for that. He's an actual scientist and educator who has a sense of humor, the sense of humor probably not as rare among that community as people might think, but he our funny scientist educator guy.
Pluto was such an amazing surprise I hope this new object turns out to be really weird. That NASA was able to find a new target for the probe years after launch and direct it with the fuel sitting on empty is a huge accomplishment on its own.
Very cool. I had forgotten about this flyby and glad I happened to check in on Clutchfans to be reminded of it. Given how surprising Pluto and it's moon system was I'm expected some surprises out of this. One personal note as I've been travelling I've been thinking a lot about issues like Globalization and the crisis with democracy we're seeing around the World. Things like this really put it into perspective how tiny our world is and how little it matters to the vast mystery that is all around us. We really are just a pale blue dot even in our own cosmic neighborhood.
This is old, but regardless... DOOMED. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/studies-find-echoes-of-black-holes-eating-stars
@KingCheetah, the above was from your Dec 24th post. Any update from them on whether the "precise navigation" worked ... wrt "we might get it, and we might not."
I haven't read that they are having any problems, but I believe they won't know for sure until the data is received.
I'm very excited about that. I've been a space "nerd" since childhood and it's always exciting to hear about something new and special. I'm hoping that today a new year will bring new promises in the field of space.
Need pics. And holy crap, does @Deckard have one of these? BBS gofundme to get him one? Showed up in the ads at the bottom of the page.
A pic or two here : https://gizmodo.com/live-updates-on-the-new-horizons-flyby-of-ultima-thule-1831414634
The best images won't be available until next month, probably. Sometime tomorrow, another few-thousand pixel image should be ready by around 1pm Central, as I understand it. The data that is being sent back takes over 6 hours to get back to earth and then it's being transmitted at around 500 bits per second. lol. Megapixel-class images may not be available until next month.
Hi, @Deckard, pals. Has anyone else been humming "Ultima Thule for your stockings, I believe"? Anyway, I'm not the one to give much insight into this mission, even though I think it's really cool to take in. I think the presumed age of the thing makes its composition (probably more than its weird shape) potentially very interesting for those scientists trying to figure out how the early solar system evolved. Don't sleep on the other mission, the asteroid one, that just achieved a 1-mile parking orbit. That's a new record! More on Osiris-Rex, looking at an asteroid that could one day threaten earth (unlikely but not impossible).
