Eye's on the New Horizons and the Kuiper Belt

[rockytopva]

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)
03/18/2019 - 14.07 km/s (31,474 mph)
05/23/2019 - 14.06 km/s (31,450 mph)
02/14/2020 - 13.98 km/s (31,272 mph)
04/14/2020 - 13.97 km/s (31,250 mph)

New Horizon team giving an operational update and scouring space for anymore kbo encounter possibilities.

New Horizons: PI Perspectives?page=piPerspective_04_15_2020

 

[Ophiolite]

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)
03/18/2019 - 14.07 km/s (31,474 mph)
05/23/2019 - 14.06 km/s (31,450 mph)
02/14/2020 - 13.98 km/s (31,272 mph)
04/14/2020 - 13.97 km/s (31,250 mph)

New Horizon team giving an operational update and scouring space for anymore kbo encounter possibilities.

New Horizons: PI Perspectives?page=piPerspective_04_15_2020

Every time I read your updates (thank you for those) and see the slowly decreasing spacecraft velocity, the following scene comes to mind. The numbers continue to decrease, reach zero, then reverse. Later, down at the Cape, one NASA engineer turns to another and says "See. I told you. What goes up, must come down."

 

[rockytopva]

Every time I read your updates (thank you for those) and see the slowly decreasing spacecraft velocity, the following scene comes to mind. The numbers continue to decrease, reach zero, then reverse. Later, down at the Cape, one NASA engineer turns to another and says "See. I told you. What goes up, must come down."

Providing the spacecraft did not reach escape velocity.

 

[Ophiolite]

Providing the spacecraft did not reach escape velocity.

Which, of course, it has. But I never let facts interfere with an amusing image.

 

[FredVB]

Every time I read your updates (thank you for those) and see the slowly decreasing spacecraft velocity, the following scene comes to mind. The numbers continue to decrease, reach zero, then reverse. Later, down at the Cape, one NASA engineer turns to another and says "See. I told you. What goes up, must come down."

Providing the spacecraft did not reach escape velocity.

Which, of course, it has. But I never let facts interfere with an amusing image.

I guess, if there were no other bodies in the cosmos besides this solar system itself, with its gravity, at some time after vast amounts of millenia, it could reach a furthest point, and reverse direction to drift toward the solar system again, and accelerate in that direction. It is going so fast, it would be so far away in time even in that case, we would no longer be here. But with there being other star systems with gravity to pull in other directions, that won't ever happen.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I guess, if there were no other bodies in the cosmos besides this solar system itself, with its gravity, at some time after vast amounts of millenia, it could reach a furthest point, and reverse direction to drift toward the solar system again, and accelerate in that direction.

Not if it has already exceeded escape velocity.

 

[essentialsaltes]

From its unique vantage point 4.3 billion miles from Earth, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has captured images of nearby stars — and the stars appear to be in different positions than where we see them from Earth.

This is the first time this kind of "parallax effect" has been captured using a spacecraft. You can mimic this by holding a finger about an arm's length from your face and see how it appears to jump when you close your left or right eye, according to a release by NASA.

[Have 3D glasses?

Why yes.... yes I do, for just such emergencies.]

 

[loveofourlord]

From its unique vantage point 4.3 billion miles from Earth, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has captured images of nearby stars — and the stars appear to be in different positions than where we see them from Earth.

This is the first time this kind of "parallax effect" has been captured using a spacecraft. You can mimic this by holding a finger about an arm's length from your face and see how it appears to jump when you close your left or right eye, according to a release by NASA.

[Have 3D glasses?

Why yes.... yes I do, for just such emergencies.]

thats kinda neat :> how far away are those stars?

 

[Hans Blaster]

thats kinda neat :> how far away are those stars?

For the two stars pointed out in the article:

Proxima Centauri: 4.2 light years
Wolf 359: 7.9 light years

 

[rockytopva]

11/04/2020 - New Horizons scientist talking new plans.... - New Horizons: PI Perspectives?page=piPerspective_11_04_2020

New Horizons is "now more than 4 billion miles from home — nearly 50 times farther away from the sun than the Earth is (50 AUs)" - Scientists Discover Outer Space Isn't Pitch-Black After All

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)
03/18/2019 - 14.07 km/s (31,474 mph)
05/23/2019 - 14.06 km/s (31,450 mph)
02/14/2020 - 13.98 km/s (31,272 mph)
04/14/2020 - 13.97 km/s (31,250 mph)
11/19/2020 - 13.92 km/s (31,140 mph)

 

[FredVB]

This looks interesting.

A new study led by Mohamad Ali-Dib, a research scientist at the NYU Abu Dhabi Center for Astro, Particle, and Planetary Physics, reports the significant discovery that two groups of TNOs with different surface colors also have very different orbital patterns. This new information can be compared to models of the solar system to provide fresh insights into its early chemistry. Additionally, this discovery paves the way for further understanding of the formation of the Kuiper Belt itself, an area beyond Neptune comprised of icy objects, that is also the source of some comets.

In the paper, The rarity of very red TNOs in the scattered disk, published in The Astronomical Journal, the researchers explain how they studied the chemical composition of TNOs in order to understand the dynamical history of the Kuiper Belt. TNOs are either deemed “Less Red” (often referred to as Gray), or “Very Red” (often referred to as Red) based on their surface colors. By re-analyzing a 2019 data set, the researchers discovered that gray and red TNOs have vastly different orbital patterns. Through additional calculations, the researchers determined that the two groups of TNOs formed in different locations, and this led to the dichotomy in both their orbits and colors.

Researchers Discover Orbital Patterns of Trans-Neptunian Objects Vary Based on Their Color – SciTechDaily

 

[rockytopva]

The Arrokoth flyby, closest approach occurred on 1 January 2019, at 05:33 UTC. And data was not quick coming back due to the distance from earth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/486958_Arrokoth

 

[SkyWriting]

This looks interesting.

A new study led by Mohamad Ali-Dib, a research scientist at the NYU Abu Dhabi Center for Astro, Particle, and Planetary Physics, reports the significant discovery that two groups of TNOs with different surface colors also have very different orbital patterns. This new information can be compared to models of the solar system to provide fresh insights into its early chemistry. Additionally, this discovery paves the way for further understanding of the formation of the Kuiper Belt itself, an area beyond Neptune comprised of icy objects, that is also the source of some comets.

In the paper, The rarity of very red TNOs in the scattered disk, published in The Astronomical Journal, the researchers explain how they studied the chemical composition of TNOs in order to understand the dynamical history of the Kuiper Belt. TNOs are either deemed “Less Red” (often referred to as Gray), or “Very Red” (often referred to as Red) based on their surface colors. By re-analyzing a 2019 data set, the researchers discovered that gray and red TNOs have vastly different orbital patterns. Through additional calculations, the researchers determined that the two groups of TNOs formed in different locations, and this led to the dichotomy in both their orbits and colors.

Researchers Discover Orbital Patterns of Trans-Neptunian Objects Vary Based on Their Color – SciTechDaily

I Hate discrimination based on color! I despise it!
Even from Mohamad Ali-Dib... (kidding)

 

[FredVB]

I Hate discrimination based on color! I despise it!
Even from Mohamad Ali-Dib... (kidding)

I get it. But the Trans-Neptunian Objects are not being treated differently in any way affecting them, and, seeing that people descended from ancestors in different places in the world which relates to them having some recognizable differences in appearance is not itself racist discrimination, is it?

New Horizons recently photographed the star field where one of its long-distance cousins, Voyager 1, appears from New Horizons’ unique perch in the Kuiper Belt. Never before has a spacecraft in the Kuiper Belt photographed the location of an even more distant spacecraft, now in interstellar space. Although Voyager 1 is far too faint to be seen directly in the image, its location is known precisely due to NASA’s radio tracking.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-s-new-horizons-reaches-a-rare-space-milestone

From the distant Kuiper Belt at the solar system’s frontier, on Christmas Day, Dec. 25, 2020, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft pointed its Long Range Reconnaissance Imager in the direction of the Voyager 1 spacecraft, whose location is marked with the yellow circle. Voyager 1, the farthest human-made object and first spacecraft to actually leave the solar system, is more than 152 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun—about 14.1 billion miles or 22.9 billion kilometers—and was 11.2 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from New Horizons when this image was taken. Voyager 1 itself is about 1 trillion times too faint to be visible in this image.

 

[SkyWriting]

I get it. But the Trans-Neptunian Objects are not being treated differently in any way affecting them, and, seeing that people descended from ancestors in different places in the world which relates to them having some recognizable differences in appearance is not itself racist discrimination, is it?

New Horizons recently photographed the star field where one of its long-distance cousins, Voyager 1, appears from New Horizons’ unique perch in the Kuiper Belt. Never before has a spacecraft in the Kuiper Belt photographed the location of an even more distant spacecraft, now in interstellar space. Although Voyager 1 is far too faint to be seen directly in the image, its location is known precisely due to NASA’s radio tracking.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-s-new-horizons-reaches-a-rare-space-milestone

From the distant Kuiper Belt at the solar system’s frontier, on Christmas Day, Dec. 25, 2020, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft pointed its Long Range Reconnaissance Imager in the direction of the Voyager 1 spacecraft, whose location is marked with the yellow circle. Voyager 1, the farthest human-made object and first spacecraft to actually leave the solar system, is more than 152 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun—about 14.1 billion miles or 22.9 billion kilometers—and was 11.2 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from New Horizons when this image was taken. Voyager 1 itself is about 1 trillion times too faint to be visible in this image.
View attachment 306701

Though if it were a radio telescope, the image could be clear.

 

[FredVB]

A few stars appear to be in different positions from the view from New Horizons, from the effect of parallax.

More than four billion miles from home and speeding toward interstellar space, NASA's New Horizons has traveled so far that it now has a unique view of the nearest stars. "It's fair to say that New Horizons is looking at an alien sky, unlike what we see from Earth," said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado. "And that has allowed us to do something that had never been accomplished before — to see the nearest stars visibly displaced on the sky from the positions we see them on Earth."

On April 22-23, the spacecraft turned its long-range telescopic camera to a pair of the closest stars, Proxima Centauri and Wolf 359, showing just how they appear in different places than we see from Earth. Scientists have long used this "parallax effect" – how a star appears to shift against its background when seen from different locations -- to measure distances to stars.

 

[rockytopva]

A few stars appear to be in different positions from the view from New Horizons, from the effect of parallax.

More than four billion miles from home and speeding toward interstellar space, NASA's New Horizons has traveled so far that it now has a unique view of the nearest stars. "It's fair to say that New Horizons is looking at an alien sky, unlike what we see from Earth," said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado. "And that has allowed us to do something that had never been accomplished before — to see the nearest stars visibly displaced on the sky from the positions we see them on Earth."

On April 22-23, the spacecraft turned its long-range telescopic camera to a pair of the closest stars, Proxima Centauri and Wolf 359, showing just how they appear in different places than we see from Earth. Scientists have long used this "parallax effect" – how a star appears to shift against its background when seen from different locations -- to measure distances to stars.

Using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, and the du Pont Telescope, astronomers have observed the largest flare ever recorded from Proxima Centauri, the Sun’s closest stellar neighbor and one of the best-studied low-mass stars.

Astronomers Detect Extreme Flare from Proxima Centauri | Astronomy | Sci-News.com

 

[FredVB]

Using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, and the du Pont Telescope, astronomers have observed the largest flare ever recorded from Proxima Centauri, the Sun’s closest stellar neighbor and one of the best-studied low-mass stars.

Astronomers Detect Extreme Flare from Proxima Centauri | Astronomy | Sci-News.com

It doesn't look good for any life being on the planet there.

Massive flare on Proxima Centauri could spell bad news for any alien

 

[FredVB]

NASA has announced an updated plan to continue New Horizons’ mission of exploration of the outer solar system.

Beginning in fiscal year 2025, New Horizons will focus on gathering unique heliophysics data, which can be readily obtained during an extended, low-activity mode of operations.

NASA New Horizons to Continue Exploring Outer Solar System

NASA New Horizons to Continue Exploring Outer Solar System

www.nasa.gov

 

[FredVB]

'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.”