Posted on 12/23/2018 5:19:57 PM PST by BenLurkin
Only a week before its expected meeting with Kuiper Belt object (KBO) Ultima Thule on New Year's Day, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has not been able to detect the predictable and consistent variations in reflectivity — or ‘light curve' in the jargon of astronomers — that accompany all celestial objects in orbit near a bright star.
"It's really a puzzle," agreed Alan Stern, NASA's New Horizons principal investigator, cited by Gizmodo.
Southwest Research Institute mission scientist Marc Buie suggested that the rotational point of Ultima Thule could currently be aligned directly toward the NASA spacecraft as it approaches. From that perspective, the spacecraft would not detect the shifts in brightness as the irregularly-shaped rock tumbles through space.
SETI Institute spokesperson Mark Showalter offered another explanation, positing that "Ultima [Thule] may be surrounded by a cloud of dust that obscures its light curve, much the way a comet's coma often overwhelms the light reflected by its central [core]," cited by Gizmodo.com.
University of Virginia researcher and New Horizons assistant project scientist Anne Verbiscer, offered that Ultima Thule could be occluded by multiple little moons — each tumbling object producing a discrete light curve — creating, in her words: a "jumbled superposition of light curves."
(Excerpt) Read more at sputniknews.com ...
Save us blueunicorn!
It’s a weird movie but the gist of it is that a newly-discovered gas giant (something like the size of Neptune or Uranus) is approaching Earth. It seems to pass safely but because of gravitational perturbation it swings back around and collides with Earth. That’s from the end of it, when the crash happens.
“Ultima Thule” - great name for a girl!
Bond girl
Interesting origins... (from wikipedia)
Thule was the place located furthest north, which was mentioned in ancient Greek and Roman literature and cartography.
In classical and medieval literature, ultima Thule (Latin “furthermost Thule”) acquired a metaphorical meaning of any distant place located beyond the “borders of the known world”.[2]
By the late middle ages and early modern era, the Greco-Roman Thule was often identified with the real Iceland or Greenland. Sometimes Ultima Thule was a Latin name for Greenland, when Thule was used for Iceland.[3] By the late 19th century, however, Thule was frequently identified with Norway.[4][5]
In 1910, the explorer Knud Rasmussen established a missionary and trading post in north-western Greenland, which he named “Thule” (later Qaanaaq).”
Three Plus hours and no one has speculated that it is Klingons heading out from Uranus???
And no one talks about Oumuamua’s twin companion mentioned briefly then not at all ...
Everything in space and on earth can and will kill you.
Fear not!
I have allowed NASA to see this!
I took the eye cover off their telescope.
They aren’t rocket scie
Never mind.
Whoa! I mean, woe!
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