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Eye's on the New Horizons and the Kuiper Belt

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Christian
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FredVB said:
'This new path allows for the possibility of using the spacecraft for a future close flyby of a reachable Kuiper Belt object, should one be identified. It also will enable the spacecraft to preserve fuel and reduce operational complexity while a search is conducted for a compelling flyby candidate.'

“The New Horizons mission has a unique position in our solar system to answer important questions about our heliosphere and provide extraordinary opportunities for multidisciplinary science for NASA and the scientific community,” said Nicola Fox, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “The agency decided that it was best to extend operations for New Horizons until the spacecraft exits the Kuiper Belt, which is expected in 2028 through 2029.”
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Guys, it is August 2024, and the New Horizons has not found any new target. My hopes are going down for this probe. Space is very empty, and I thought the New Horizons would have found a target years ago, and would fly by multiple targets by now. This is not Star Trek or Star Wars where the asteroids are plentiful.

So, what is the probability of the New Horizons passing by a Kuiper Belt Object on any given day? In other words, how many miles is the average distance between two reasonably sized objects in this region of space?
 
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Ophiolite

Ophiolite

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AlexB23 said:
So, what is the probability of the New Horizons passing by a Kuiper Belt Object on any given day? In other words, how many miles is the average distance between two reasonably sized objects in this region of space?
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I considered gathering a few score research papers on the Kuiper Belt, comets, meteroids, studying them in detail, reviewing the details of New Horizons trajectory and the scale of its resources for changing that course, assimilating it all and reporting back to you in four or five years. But on relfection I decided instead to say, low. Very low. I mean this is so low that for a limbo dancer to get under it their height would need to be measured in Angstroms. Hope that helps. :)
 
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Ophiolite said:
I considered gathering a few score research papers on the Kuiper Belt, comets, meteroids, studying them in detail, reviewing the details of New Horizons trajectory and the scale of its resources for changing that course, assimilating it all and reporting back to you in four or five years. But on relfection I decided instead to say, low. Very low. I mean this is so low that for a limbo dancer to get under it their height would need to be measured in Angstroms. Hope that helps. :)
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I would like a number though, as a probability. :)

Like, is the distance between two Kuiper belt objects > 1 km in size measured as 100,000 km, 1 million km, or 10 million km? And, what is the probability that the New Horizons would pass by a Kuiper belt object that size, assuming a uniform density for the Kuiper belt.
 
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AlexB23 said:
I would like a number though, as a probability. :)

Like, is the distance between two Kuiper belt objects > 1 km in size measured as 100,000 km, 1 million km, or 10 million km? And, what is the probability that the New Horizons would pass by a Kuiper belt object that size, assuming a uniform density for the Kuiper belt.
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A search of google scholar (Kuiper belt size distribution) produced this article, The size distribution of Kuiper Belt objects for D >10 km as the second hit. Judicious amendments to the search prompt and date range should provide improved selections. Then it's just a bit of maths. Do keep in mind that the Kuiper Belt is a volume, not a plane.
 
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Ophiolite said:
A search of google scholar (Kuiper belt size distribution) produced this article, The size distribution of Kuiper Belt objects for D >10 km as the second hit. Judicious amendments to the search prompt and date range should provide improved selections. Then it's just a bit of maths. Do keep in mind that the Kuiper Belt is a volume, not a plane.
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So, should we use a torus volume formula to do the math? Dang, that article is so confusing, and beyond what I know about distribution. If I can figure out how many thousands/millions/billions of Kuiper Belt object > 10 km in diameter, the inner radius of the Kuiper Belt, the outer radius and the thickness, then I might be able to determine how many Kuiper belt objects > 10 km in diameter there could be in a cubic AU of space. Then, one could calculate the mean distance between a Kuiper belt object and New Horizons at any given point in time?

After that, how do we calculate the probability of a flyby within say 10,000 km or say 384,400 km (one lunar distance) of a Kuiper Belt object >10 km in diameter? Do we just cube that distance, and divide it by the total volume of the Kuiper Belt and multiply by the number of objects in the Kuiper belt?
 
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