Eye's on the New Horizons and the Kuiper Belt

FrumiousBandersnatch

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We are roughly 0.25 AU, or 25,000,000 miles, from Ultima Thule

06/28/2015 - 14.54 km/s (32,500 mph)
08/14/2015 - 14.50 km/s (32,400 mph)
10/31/2015 - 14.47 km/s (32,400 mph)
01/14/2016 - 14.45 km/s (32,200 mph)
12/24/2016 - 14.43 km/s (32,200 mph)
02/01/2017 - 14.31 km/s (32,000 mph)
06/02/2017 - 14.27 km/s (31,900 mph)
07/06/2017 - 14.26 km/s (31,900 mph)
12/26/2017 - 14.20 km/s (31,765 mph)
08/02/2018 - 14.14 km/s (31,630 mph)
09/01/2018 - 14.13 km/s (31,608 mph)
11/28/2018 - 14.10 km/s (31,540 mph)

33 days away! Ought to start getting more news from the John Hopkins University there in Baltimore, Mayland!

New Horizons
New Horizons
Btw, 'Ultima Thule' means 'the furthest North', and was used to describe things 'beyond the borders of the known world', which is probably why they chose the name.
 
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rockytopva

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06/28/2015 - 14.54 km/s (32,500 mph)
08/14/2015 - 14.50 km/s (32,400 mph)
10/31/2015 - 14.47 km/s (32,400 mph)
01/14/2016 - 14.45 km/s (32,200 mph)
12/24/2016 - 14.43 km/s (32,200 mph)
02/01/2017 - 14.31 km/s (32,000 mph)
06/02/2017 - 14.27 km/s (31,900 mph)
07/06/2017 - 14.26 km/s (31,900 mph)
12/26/2017 - 14.20 km/s (31,765 mph)
08/02/2018 - 14.14 km/s (31,630 mph)
09/01/2018 - 14.13 km/s (31,608 mph)
11/28/2018 - 14.10 km/s (31,540 mph)
12/14/2018 - 14.10 km/s (31,540 mph)

17 days away! 0.14 AU from Ultima Thule! Knocking on the door!

New Horizons
 
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rockytopva

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And an interesting little photo on the nearby discovered KBO's (in which I have wondered where we are going next)....

NH_KEM_JourneyThroughKB_Trajectory_Guo20181031_v2.png
 
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rockytopva

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There is an app called, "Pluto Safari," and I have included a screenshot (click for a full image!) of the spacecraft, which is currently 0.08 AU , or 7.5 million miles from Ultima Thule....

MU69_1.jpg
 
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USincognito

a post by Alan Smithee
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Btw, 'Ultima Thule' means 'the furthest North', and was used to describe things 'beyond the borders of the known world', which is probably why they chose the name.
Beat me too it (see post above).
 
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rockytopva

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New Horizons: News Article?page=20181222

December 22, 2018
New Horizons Notebook: On Ultima's Doorstep

Final Maneuver Guides New Horizons Precisely to Ultima

New Horizons carried out its last trajectory correction maneuver on approach to Ultima Thule last week, a short thruster burst to direct the spacecraft closer to its precise flyby aim point just 2,200 miles (3,500) above the mysterious Kuiper Belt object at 12:33 am EST on Jan. 1.

At 7:53 a.m. EST on Dec. 18, New Horizons fired its small thrusters for just 27 seconds, a 0.26 meter-per-second adjustment that corrected about 180 miles (300 kilometers) of estimated targeting error and sped up the arrival time at Ultima by about five seconds.
 
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rockytopva

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Another "Pluto Safari" app image showing the position of the New Horizons spacecraft, which is currently 0.07 AU , or 6.5 million miles from Ultima Thule. This time the image has the Southern Cross constellation in the background!

MU69_2.jpg


The Southern Cross! I first saw it while on a Tahitian cruise! Unforgettable!

 
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rockytopva

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Another "Pluto Safari" app image showing the position of the New Horizons spacecraft, which is currently 0.04 AU , or around 4 million miles from Ultima Thule. Pictured below is first photo of the object taken from New Horizons December 24th, or when the object was 6 million miles from the 2014 MU69....

New Horizons: News Article?page=20181226

Actual
UT_first_1x1_detection.png


Photoshopped along with an image from the "Pluto Safari" app....

MU69_3.jpg
 

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rockytopva

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Distance from 2014 MU 69 - 0.02 AU - About 2 million miles - Two days to go!
12-31-18 Monday
2:00-3:00 pm EST- Press briefing: Ultima Thule flyby preview
3:00-4:00 pm EST- Q&A: Ask the New Horizons Team
8:00-11:00 pm EST- Mission updates
1-1-19 Tuesday
12:15-12:45 am EST - Real-time flyby simulations
9:45 – 10:15 am EST- Live coverage of New Horizons signal-acquisition from flyby
11:30 am– 12:30 pm ES - Press briefing: Latest images
1-2-19 Wednesday
2:00-3:00 pm EST- Press briefing: Science results from Ultima Thule
1-3-19 Thursday
2:00-3:00 pm EST- Press briefing: Science results from Ultima Thule

NASA Live

MU69_4.jpg
 
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essentialsaltes

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Raw photos will be posted here starting Jan 1st (Nothing new yet at this time of writing).

"The resolution will improve each day, so you can watch as Ultima Thule is transformed from a barely resolved object into a new world never seen before. In the images posted on Jan. 1, Ultima is expected to be approximately 3 pixels across, but it will grow to approximately 100 pixels across for the images posted on Jan. 2, and approximately 200 pixels across for the images posted on Jan. 3."
 
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rockytopva

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PBS Newshour has had a Live feed of a press conference. Should be archived in the video section soon.
I believe we will have a 5 hour trip for the data to get from New Horizons to Earth. Which means, we can get images at any time now. I have read that the whole data download may take 10 months.

lor_0408440282_0x633_sci_2.jpg
 
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