NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft Captures New Images of Ultima Thule

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has returned new images captured on approach to its next flyby target, the Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69, also known as Ultima Thule.

This composite image of Ultima Thule was taken just 33 hours before the December 2 course-correction maneuver that fine-tuned New Horizons’ trajectory for its New Year’s flyby. At left is the full LORRI image with a yellow circle centered on the location of Ultima Thule. Unlike the LORRI images taken in August through October 2018, the object is now evident among the many background stars even without further processing. Nevertheless, Ultima Thule really stands out after subtracting the background stars; the region within the yellow box has been expanded in the star-subtracted version of the image on the right. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

This composite image of Ultima Thule was taken just 33 hours before the December 2 course-correction maneuver that fine-tuned New Horizons’ trajectory for its New Year’s flyby. At left is the full LORRI image with a yellow circle centered on the location of Ultima Thule. Unlike the LORRI images taken in August through October 2018, the object is now evident among the many background stars even without further processing. Nevertheless, Ultima Thule really stands out after subtracting the background stars; the region within the yellow box has been expanded in the star-subtracted version of the image on the right. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

The new images of Ultima Thule were taken by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), the high-resolution camera aboard the New Horizons spacecraft.

The Kuiper Belt object was 4.01 billion miles (6.47 billion km) from the Sun and 24 million miles (38.7 million km) from the spacecraft when the images were captured.

“As the New Horizons spacecraft closes in on its target, Ultima Thule is getting brighter and brighter in the LORRI optical navigation images,” said New Horizons project scientist Dr. Hal Weaver, from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

“It’s now standing out much more clearly among the sea of background stars.”

Artist’s impression of New Horizons encountering a Pluto-like object in the distant Kuiper Belt. Image credit: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI / Alex Parker.

Artist’s impression of New Horizons encountering a Pluto-like object in the distant Kuiper Belt. Image credit: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI / Alex Parker.

The images were taken just 33 hours before the December 2, 2018 course-correction maneuver that fine-tuned New Horizons’ trajectory for its rendezvous with Ultima Thule.

“At 8:55 a.m. EST, the spacecraft fired its small thrusters for 105 seconds, adjusting its velocity by just over 2.2 mph (1 m/s),” the mission team members said.

“The maneuver — the most distant trajectory correction ever made — was designed to keep New Horizons on track toward its ideal arrival time and closest distance to Ultima, just 2,200 miles (3,500 km) at 12:33 a.m. EST on January 1, 2019.”

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