New Horizons

[NSEP]

 

[ThatGuyWithALongUsername]

There was also a higher resolution pic on the briefing, not on Twitter yet...

[cubinator]

How'd I do? (drawing from July 2017)

[ThatGuyWithALongUsername]

1 minute ago, cubinator said:

How'd I do? (drawing from July 2017)

It looks like you just need another, smaller one on top, lol. Right color, wrong shape. And this was before the occultation, so that's ok!

Edited January 2, 2019 by ThatGuyWithALongUsername

[HebaruSan]

10 minutes ago, NSEP said:

 

[NSEP]

1 minute ago, HebaruSan said:

[cubinator]

We might be able to get a 3D image soon...They've been going on about having two perspectives.

Edited January 2, 2019 by cubinator

[NSEP]

 

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, NSEP said:

Yes thought that myself even if its an stupid design for an robot. 
You can make an better spherical robot without an head, you want the head if you want to interact with people in other ways than shooting at them or blowing them up. 
But then you also want arms to hold stuff and something like r2d2 or preferable more humanoid work better. 
On the other hand most humans and similar find the hot raptor chic model an bit unnerving even if an hit among the target audience. 
 

[lajoswinkler]

Folks, remember that this "red" they're talking about is not our red. It's "it has prominent red spectral lines". (and they always forget that public is not composed out of geologists and that they should adapt to this situation instead of introducing errors like they did with Pluto's image)

Remember Charon's pole?

 

Left is true color, left is New Horizon's team's "enhanced".

Ultima Thule is not obviously red. It's brownish and quite dark, plus the light there is something like our moonlight. I'll say like chernozem.

[StrandedonEarth]

44 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

hot raptor chic model

Are you referring to Boomer from the BSG reboot?

I say we call it “Frosty” 

 

[Just Jim]

2 hours ago, NSEP said:

 

Wow... I have no words...
(...and that's rare for me)

[lajoswinkler]

I'm pretty sure Ultima Thule looks like a big sheep turd, so the team was very fast to pronounce it red and snowy and cute like a snowman.

[ProtoJeb21]

4 hours ago, NSEP said:

Now I can’t unsee Ultima’s almost uncanny resemblance to BB-8.

[LaydeeDem]

4 hours ago, lajoswinkler said:

Folks, remember that this "red" they're talking about is not our red. It's "it has prominent red spectral lines". (and they always forget that public is not composed out of geologists and that they should adapt to this situation instead of introducing errors like they did with Pluto's image)

Remember Charon's pole?

 

Left is true color, left is New Horizon's team's "enhanced".

Ultima Thule is not obviously red. It's brownish and quite dark, plus the light there is something like our moonlight. I'll say like chernozem.

This is a good point about the current color images of MU69. The "enhanced" images are false color images that include wavelengths the human eye can't detect. Assembled from Near-Infrared, Red and Blue filter images. (NIR data assigned to the red channel, Red data assigned to the green channel, Blue data assigned to the blue channel). I produced a graphic illustrating this a little while ago using New Horizon's MVIC data and images from Himawari 9's AHI. (All processing by me so any errors are my own)

 

"Natural" Color*

 

vs

 

New Horizon's "Enhanced Color"

 

 

*Note that the "natural color" images still aren't a perfect representation of what the human eye would see. The green filter of Himawari 9's AHI has a different green spectral response than the human eye and Near-infrared data had to be blended in to the green channel order to bring some green back to Earth's vegetation. New Horizons' MVIC doesn't have a green filter at all. The green channel was synthesized by combining blue and red filter images. But all in all they should be at least a close-ish representation of what the human eye would see.**

 

**My interpretation of Pluto is still a little on the brown/red end. I haven't had time to update these graphics so defer to these images by Alex Parker for a better "natural color" interpretation of Pluto:

https://twitter.com/Alex_Parker/status/102032630097883955

 

Edited January 3, 2019 by LaydeeDem

[YNM]

Good to know we keep finding interesting things !

Edited January 3, 2019 by YNM

[DDE]

12 hours ago, lajoswinkler said:

I'll say like chernozem.

And that’s how the centuries-long Russo-Ukranian War for Ultima Thule began.

[Shpaget]

On 1/2/2019 at 6:38 AM, 5thHorseman said:

It was. I purposefully looked at it several times and it never looked better than a slightly bright star.

 

Did you have a chance to look at it from a dark sky spot? Or it made no difference? Naked eye or telescope/binocular?

[lajoswinkler]

10 hours ago, LaydeeDem said:

This is a good point about the current color images of MU69. The "enhanced" images are false color images that include wavelengths the human eye can't detect. Assembled from Near-Infrared, Red and Blue filter images. (NIR data assigned to the red channel, Red data assigned to the green channel, Blue data assigned to the blue channel). I produced a graphic illustrating this a little while ago using New Horizon's MVIC data and images from Himawari 9's AHI. (All processing by me so any errors are my own)

Great work, thanks!

I just can't understand why the hell is this team being so god damn dumb and bullheaded about this enhancing. People don't want that. They want to see the object in its natural appearance. It's the first time we're seeing it up close. Let the geologists deal with enhanced photographs later.

This has "Alan Stern" plastered all over it. He has been the most loud mouthed person in New Horizons team, saying totally sensationalist stuff that really annoyed quite a lot of people, including me.

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, Shpaget said:

Did you have a chance to look at it from a dark sky spot? Or it made no difference? Naked eye or telescope/binocular?

Naked eye. The problem was, the majority of the time that viewing was good, the tail was directly away from Earth. And the times when it wasn't, well Seattle is not well known for clear skies

[KG3]

It's amazing how well this object fits the prediction made from the occultation data! 

Still, it doesn't look like the snow men we typically see where I live in North America.  Our snow men here tend to have three body parts, head, thorax and abdomen... more like an insect.  Ultima Thule seems to have a body plan more like a spider, cephalothorax and abdomen.  Just without all the legs and stuff.   

[kerbiloid]

If both are spherical , why is the smaller one not crushed under huge gravity of the bigger one? Too young to die?

[pincushionman]

34 minutes ago, KG3 said:

…Still, it doesn't look like the snow men we typically see where I live in North America.  Our snow men here tend to have three body parts…

This depends entirely on how dedicated your children are to the task. And how much good snow you get.

[Green Baron]

7 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

If both are spherical , why is the smaller one not crushed under huge gravity of the bigger one? Too young to die?

Much too small and not dense enough for higher gravity. Collision speeds out there are in the range of km/h, maybe 10km/h.

[kerbiloid]

1 minute ago, Green Baron said:

Much too small and not dense enough for higher gravity. Collision speeds out there are in the range of km/h, maybe 10km/h.

I mean not the collision, but their self-gravity pressure.
It was enough to make both of them almost spherical. So, it probably should spherize them again.
Just married?