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New Horizons


r4pt0r

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I'd guess that Ultima-Thule might be much older, as probably all KBOs a remnant from the early solar system, and considerably denser than Methone. Methone seems to be in a state of flow to maintain a smooth surface, while U-T may have icy parts (at the collar for example) as well as more rocky components. If Methone is formed from material from the ice rings it may just be a few 10s of millions of years old, the rings are assumed to be an ephemeral thing.

Just a guess ...

Edited by Green Baron
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Rumours have it that New Horizons found methanol ice on UT.

Before we split into one group who shouts "Fuel station !" and another "Distillery !"(*), this still needs a proper link ... :wink:

 

(*) ... always prepared to risk an eye ... that could be the place where i'll open my space pub. "Andorian Ale, local product" :cool: Epic headache made for the movies included.

Edited by Green Baron
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The methanol thing apparently originates from a slide show "Ultima Thule, Surface Composition" held during a NASA press briefing.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/Press-Conferences/index.php?page=2019-03-18

Scroll down slide no. 7 by Dr. S. Protopapa. I find the name remarkable :-)

Edited by Green Baron
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https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/12/squeezing-science-out-of-new-horizons-as-it-heads-out-of-the-solar-system/

In summary:

Observations funded until 2028-29;

Arrokoth was, it seems, made up of 8-9 smaller objects glomming together gently enough they didn't break;

Computing possible Kuiper Belt Objects to observe has been hugely sped up from weeks to hours, thanks to computer-aided selection;

There are a series of sensors that detect the infinitesimal amounts of dust at the edge of the Kuiper Belt. It was predicted it would fall off around 40-50 AU, but it hasn't yet;

Using the small LORRI telescope, they took observations of Uranus and Neptune from a brand-new perspective. They also observed on the blackest part of the sky they could find to measure the Cosmic Optical Background, the remaining visible light in the cosmos. It turned out to be brighter than expected, even when they eliminated everything they could think of. They're going to check 15 more fields of utter blackness to see if this holds water.

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observations from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft hint that the Kuiper Belt – the vast, distant outer zone of our solar system populated by hundreds of thousands of icy, rocky planetary building blocks – might stretch much farther out than we thought

 

https://www.nasa.gov/missions/new-horizons/nasas-new-horizons-detects-dusty-hints-of-extended-kuiper-belt/

Also - mission could extend to the 2040s? 

 New Horizons is expected to have sufficient propellant and power to operate through the 2040s, at distances beyond 100 AU from the Sun. That far out, mission scientists say, the SDC could potentially even record the spacecraft’s transition into a region where interstellar particles dominate the dust environment.

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