NASA Releases First Clear Images of Distant Kuiper Belt Object (engadget.com) 135
NASA's New Horizons team has released the promised first images from its history-making flyby of (486958) 2014 MU69. "The snapshots, captured from as close at 17,000 miles away, show that the 21-mile-long Kuiper Belt object is a 'contract binary' where two spheres slowly collided and fused with each other," reports Engadget. "The two may have linked up '99 percent of the way' to the start of the Solar System, Johns Hopkins University APL said." From the report: Capturing a true representation of 2014 MU69 is difficult, at least with the initial batch of pictures. There's a visible light camera onboard the New Horizons Probe (shown on the left), but the Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (center) is much sharper. To create an accurate image (on the right), scientists had to produce a composite. Higher-resolution pictures and additional scientific data will keep flowing over the "next weeks and months," the New Horizons team said.
Nomen est... whatever. (Score:5, Insightful)
originally named it Ultima Thule because the term infers that it's "beyond the limits of the known world." In practice, though, it also carries racist connotations.
Where are the scientists who named the object and what shirts are they wearing?! It's time for another public shaming and apology, right? Good grief...
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Because the larger rock has attached the smaller 14km wide one, like cargo, holding tons of minerals. It's the Ultimate Thule!
The pictures fail to reveal the giant bike rack on the back however.
Re:Nomen est... whatever. (Score:5, Funny)
I would have called it Frosty the Snowman, because the object looks like Frosty the Snowman to me... and how cool would that be to have a space object named that?
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Clearly Frosty is a midget.
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I would have called it Frosty the Snowman, because the object looks like Frosty the Snowman to me... and how cool would that be to have a space object named that?
Nope, it's the 21st century. Everything now has to follow the "Frosty McFrostyface" naming convention.
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unless you really are deliberately looking for something to pull out of your ass to hate/shame/bully people with, and have a "guilty by association" mindset like the Nazis.
Well that's pretty much the crux of the SJW modus operandi, in a nutshell.
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unless you really are deliberately looking for something to pull out of your ass to hate/shame/bully people with, and have a "guilty by association" mindset like the Nazis.
DING! DING! DING!
We have a winner!
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You're saying there's no recognisable subdivision below the species level?
Farmers might not agree with that.
If you prefer an empiric approach, try kicking a chihuahua and a bull mastiff up the arse. They're both canis [lupus] familiaris, so the result should be the same.
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Next up, beer will have racist connotations because the Nazis liked beer.
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Speaking of public shaming, you are trying to shame imaginary people for an imaginary crime that you fear may possibly happen. Bit of a stretch, no?
Or just karma whoring with a standard anti-sjw rant?
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You mean Gamergate?
Because it was them. Some pretty unknown people mentioned that they thought the shirt was inappropriate on Twitter (people who weren't followed by lots of others, who had no reason to think their opinion would result in controversy, you know, in much the same way as if you said "I think Pelosi's haircut isn't becoming of a majority leader" in your private Twitter account you wouldn't expect anything to happen. None of them said anything other than commenting on it being inappropriate,
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If Trump were science-aware he could have Elly Prizeman design another one of her in-your-face shirts for the presser. Suck on that, PoundMeTooers!
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Love how they claim there is a controversy, and then has to go on and explain the background of that controversy that no one ever heard of. Seriously, if they had just left it at "beyond the limits of the known world", the author would have done his part to let white supremecists fade into the distant past where they can eventually be buried and forgotten. It's almost like he has never heard of the Streisand Effect.
Re: Nomen est... whatever. (Score:2)
The scientists are obviously working on NASA's Eagle transport and Moonbase Alpha project. Soon, you shall get the PR through Brian Blessed.
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There is almost no racist overtones at all. "Thule" has been used as a name since antiquity and the obscure fact that some Nazi occultists believed it to be the original Aryan homeland should be nothing more than a minor footnote. "Thule" has meant for ages the furthest land that can be mapped, and "ultima Thule" means it's even further away than that. It's an obscure and geeky name, reflecting the nerddom that is alive and well within NASA with no racist connotations.
A "contract binary"? (Score:2, Insightful)
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Yeah, the term is actually "contact binary." Another result of poor /. editing.
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Don't be ediotic.
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Wait... there's editing?
Re:A "contract binary"? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's correct in the linked article at endgadget.
Which means BeauH1B either thought it was wrong and changed it or he doesn't know how to copy & paste.
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It shows we need a contract on that editor.
Re:Hot take from Gizmodo and Newsweek (Score:5, Informative)
"Thule" and "Ultima Thule" generally referred to Iceland and Greenland, and has been used to refer to distant lands for millennia. It's unfair that one particular group's cooption of the term is supposed to have ruined it.
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Ignoring is best. The worst response though is suddenly being full of outrage and declaring "that is how all feminists think!"
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It's unfair that one particular group's cooption of the term is supposed to have ruined it.
Same goes for the swastika symbol. Eastern countries don't seem to mind, though, you can still see plenty of swastikas marking religious places on maps in China, Japan, India,... Although most of them seem to have agreed to stick to the mirror image of the nazi version. (They used to use both without any particular preference for one over the other).
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If you ask a random person what Thule means, you will find that the connotation is insider knowledge. Outside of Nazi and Antifa circles, the name is mostly unknown or known for its original meaning. The only people who are offended by this name are seeking to be offended. This is a teachable moment: The far left and the far right will gladly throw progress under the bus in order to fuel the fire. Fuck them all.
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If you ask a random person what Thule means, you will find that
... most of them think it's a company that makes roof racks and Kayak racks for cars.
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That, or a US Air Force Base in NorthWestern Greenland.
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If you ask a random person what Thule means, you will find that the connotation is insider knowledge. Outside of Nazi and Antifa circles, the name is mostly unknown or known for its original meaning. The only people who are offended by this name are seeking to be offended. This is a teachable moment: The far left and the far right will gladly throw progress under the bus in order to fuel the fire. Fuck them all.
My undergraduate degree is in history. One of my primary interests is World War II, so I would like to think I am relatively informed regarding Nazi ideology, mythology, and iconography. I can't recall "Ultima Thule" ever mentioned in reference to Nazism. Apparently it was a fringe belief within the occult circles which were themselves a fringe belief within the Nazi Party? Occultism in the Nazi party is already heavily exaggerated and overblown anyway. Was there some of it there? Probably. Himmler w
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This isn't actually about the far left or the far right at all. It's about the media finding the 3 people in the world they can slip a buck to in order to have them create a controversy to write about. The controversy then generates all sorts of outrage from people about how horrible it is that anyone would get offended over such a stupid thing and [insert political bias], which makes it go viral, and ka-ching!
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If you'd asked me I would have said that Thule is the GateKeeper -- but then I looked it up to double check and find out the Gatekeeper is actually Zuul so I had no idea what it meant.
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It does though. The swastika was never in widespread use in Europe, so after the war it disappeared again. But to this day the German army displays the Schwarzes Kreuz, which is a combination of the Balkenkreuz used by the Nazis, and the cross pattée (also used by some extreme right wing groups), and very similar in appearance to both. Why? Because it is a very common symbol in the west, used before time out of mind - not just in Germany - and not considered to be tainted by Nazi use.
Not widespread, but it wasn't unknown either. One of the Scandinavian countries, I think Finland but not sure, had the Swastika on their planes before, during, and for sometime after the Nazi rule in Germany. There are examples of Swastikas used in patterns and designs in Europe prior Nazi use too.
So yeah, it wasn't common before the Nazis (not like, say the star, cross, or moon symbols) but it did have some limited usage that it can't enjoy anymore.
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It's unfair that one particular group's cooption of the term is supposed to have ruined it.
Damn those Greeks!
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It's gizmodo. The them, "nazis" mean people politically to the right of Marx and Lenin. I suspect that NASA scientists, being normal people and not batshit insane far leftists do indeed fall into that category.
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It's gizmodo. The them, "nazis" mean people politically to the right of Marx and Lenin.
No, it means people who believe in the political and social ideals of the Nazi party from the German Reich such as social Darwinism, and nationalism. The vast majority of people are politically to the right of Marx and Lenin; but the vast majority of people are NOT Nazis.
Nazis approved of asserting the rights of their nation over others, they saw it as a legitimate survival of the fittest. They believed in promoting people from their nation and keeping people to be perceived of other nations and races out
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We know you mean Republicans. It's not like you're shy about this sort of thing.
Not at all. Most Republicans are not even close to Nazi-ism.
Yeah, most Germans were not Nazi either. (Score:2)
Yeah, most Germans were not Nazi either... even though they did their part to support it. Especially when it all fell down... See "I was not a Nazi Polka" then check out "Your Friendly Liberal Neighborhood Ku Klux Klan."
The smart side of the stupid republicans now are "independent" again and back to saying "both sides are corrupt." Like they were at the end of the Bush years! It is a false equivalence that can't be left alone so they go into hiding without learning anything until their next horrible mist
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Nazis approved of asserting the rights of their nation over others, they saw it as a legitimate survival of the fittest. They believed in promoting people from their nation and keeping people to be perceived of other nations and races out of their lands. The rich were rich because they were better. They believed in ultimate authority from the top- and believed journalists and lower level politicians should not question the ultimate leader. They believed in the inferiority of other races and people who had certain religious beliefs.
Umh? I think you just described every country and culture in the world at that time, and a large percentage (if not a vast majority) of the cultures and countries in the world today.
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The funniest part about your idiotic rant is that the list of "beliefs and approved things" is that essentially all nations that aren't gone today believe in most of those values, because those values have nothing to do with values. They have to do with being a successful nation.
So I guess I stand corrected. Even Lenin is a nazi to you, because Lenin built a more or less a successful state.
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You have very low comprehension abilities if you think that was a rant, or that it applies to most countries around today.
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Yes, I'm sure that's it.
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Still alone, aren't you? Just like on New Years?
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But it wasn't even a nefarious "second meaning". It was a nefarious highly obscure meaning that no one in today's world knows of or uses. The article seems absurd in implying that the modern neo-Nazis still use the term.
Some writers are on the far fringe and should just be ignored, so maybe the problem is the Gizmodo editor that let the story through.
That's no moon... (Score:5, Funny)
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after tumbling down a big hill into the mud.
Actually, the bottom lobe looks somewhat flat in this
animated composit. [wikipedia.org] Earlier (and blurrier) photos showed a seamingly thinner profile.
Re: That's no moon... (Score:2)
Ultima Thule is from Space:1999, not Star Wars, and it's obviously ice built around astronauts after their Eagle exploded for no obvious but script-required reason.
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They started out with 12 Eagles, but lost about 27 of them over the course of the show.
Am I the only one who immediately thought of Tangerine Dream's "Ultima Thule"?
Dirty minds (Score:3, Insightful)
From the Engadget article:
Scientists named originally named it Ultima Thule because the term infers that it's "beyond the limits of the known world." In practice, though, it also carries racist connotations. Nazis and other white supremacists use the term to refer to a mythological homeland for their culture. NASA and the New Horizons team told Newsweek that they'd kept the name because of its more innocent meaning, but it's hard to shake that stigma.
That's in your mind. Thule and Ultima Thule are names with mythological origin and have been used by explorers for centuries. Ultima doesn't mean "beyond" btw., just last, farthest, and that's how the name is usually used. Ultima Thule is "the edge of the world" or "the most distant land". If your first association is "Nazis use this name", then your mind has become tainted.
That's how SJWs work. They are prejudiced. (Score:2, Insightful)
SJWs are actually the most prejudiced and hateful of all.
They are like Gestapo/DHS officers. Always "finding" something to terrorize you or deport you if they can.
Just that SJWs were powerless weakling losers before they realized they could simply command the masses, by triggering thought-terminating clichees that create peer pressure and shaming, and then act like they are *the victims*.
Is "reverse bullying" an already known term?
An SJW is, by definition not prejudiced (Score:2)
If some person is, I don't give shit what they call themselves, they've nothing to do with justice, social or otherwise.
Secondly, none of the fuss was stirred up by anyone who actually believed it. It wss a troll, like any other, seeking to cause trouble. If anyone gets killed, well, the author will be that much happier.
You don't do that if you think you have a point. If you've evidence, you present it (they skip on that, a common trait of trolls) and you remain a dispassionate observer. You report the fact
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Ditto. I don't get the NorwayNazi connection.
Oh yeah, there isn't one. Really, people, stop this.
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It looks like you've had a bit too much to think.
They said it was racist and so only a racist would dare question it!
The media has spoken.
Report to boxcar 451 immediately for "retraining".
Re: Dirty minds (Score:2)
If they don't meet the dispassionate observer standard for jornalism, they're not media.
Racism (Score:1)
The words or their meanings are not racist. Only a few knuckleheads interpretations, one of which appears to write for Slashdot.
Quit injecting racism into everything.
Re: A relic (Score:2)
There won't be metals that far out.
The accretion disk has demonstrably sorted the elements. By the KBO, you're into no element heavier than oxygen.
Mandelbrot (Score:1)
Looks like the Mandelbrot set in 3D!
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I've occasionally thought than an alien ship might look like a mandelbulb variation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelbulb
Uh, no. (Score:2)
The probe was already there and the NASA crew were already working.
Total spent: $0
PC everywhere (Score:5, Insightful)
And the thing they talk about most in the linked article is how the current name of the object might be offensive to some people. I wonder how much further along we would be as a society if we were more concerned about science and real progress instead of spending so much time on useless shit like 'who might be offended'?
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Looking at the photos they should have called it "holy shit balls".
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There was an asteroid of Devizes ...
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Holy Shit Balls are symmetrical not lopsided! You are just demonstrating your asymmetricism and asymmetrical world view. I would call you an "insensitive clod" but "clod" is a problematic microaggressive word for the asymmetricarchy.
It's not about pc (Score:2)
Nothing in the article implied PC. It was all factless trolling, conspuracy theories and malicious troublemaking.
It wasn't political, never mind correct. It was a deliberate attempt to get NASA engineers attacked or killed for the sport.
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And there were so many other news articles they could have linked to instead of this lousy one.
Contract Binary (Score:3)
The planet of the first part duly hear by agrees to rest against the planet of the second part and tumble if space until acted upon by a planet of the third part.
There are better sources on this (Score:5, Informative)
The contact binary question (Score:2)
The most important finding we could get from this flyby is information about composition of the object. Are these spaceballs a mixture of rock and volatiles, like scoops of Rocky Road ice cream with real rocks? That could explain why when two of them come into slow contact, they squash together and remain in contact, rather than breaking into smaller pieces. This could tell us a lot about planetary formation.
"Contact Binary" not "Contract" (Score:2)
It is a "contact binary", not "contract".
This means two bodies that touch or attach to each other.
Re: Never A Straight Answer (Score:4, Interesting)
that object is thousands times farther than the moon, we should be glad itâ(TM)s possible to get any image at all... anyway better pictures will come, itâ(TM)s just a matter of waiting.
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don't feed the trolls please. This image is clearly part of the elaborate hoax by 'scientists' to debunk the truth that the world is flat.
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The hoax is spreading to an international level. The Chinese were duped into thinking their government landed on the far side of the moon! When really it was made in a Beijing basement (Perhaps, some Hong Kong outsourcing too). They learned that its best to confuse the masses with dreams of grandeur than to directly confront the truth of the Flat Earth.
Re:Never A Straight Answer (Score:5, Informative)
17,000 times the average distance to the moon. Raw images: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/UltimaThule-Encounter/ - of course, it's not worth trying to convince the kind of people who believe Earth is flat and humans have never gone to Moon that these are real. In the linked article, the short version: Left image is color picture, middle image is higher-resolution black and white one, and the rightmost is a composite with colors from the color image and finer features from the black and white one.
It's worth remembering that at that distance from the Sun there's barely any light, and at the closest approach 2014 MU69 passes the probe's field of vision in less than 3 seconds at their incident speeds - and due to the distance they weren't even sure which three seconds! It's a remarkable feat all in all, there's higher resolution images hopefully yet to come during the almost two year data-return window, but it isn't going to be perfectly in focus long-exposure HDR photography.
Re:Never A Straight Answer (Score:5, Informative)
Getting the data is hard enough. They're lucky when they can download at 1 kbps, and roughly 1 in every 10 bits is an error. It's going to take 20 months to download all of the data from this encounter.
Much better images are coming (even today we'll get somewhat better images), but it's going to take time. "Visually appealing images" are also competing against other scientific data for bandwidth. The best pictures will be about 4 times better resolution (on each axis). Also, this first picture was almost "dead on" with respect to the sun, which hides surface contours; later pictures will be at steeper angles, which will show the surface much better.
Re: Never A Straight Answer (Score:2)
Turbo codes on each block and reed solomon on each tbyte reduce the fanrastic number of errors, but at the cost of massively increasing data sent.
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Thank you for this informative post. I am glad that people appreciate this remarkable achievement and the crazy ones are still a minority.
As you said, considering object's reflectivity and size, sunlight at this distance, the probe speed, uncertainty (or error) of the orbit calculation it is remarkable that we have images at all. NASA (in this case Alan Stern and his team from applied physics at Johns Hopkins University) makes these amazing achievements look so easy.
I recommend a book "Chasing New Horizons"
Re: Never A Straight Answer (Score:3)
Seriously people like you want me to stop using sites like this. Thanks for making my faith in mankind yet again.
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Because New Horizons is so far from Earth, the post-contact strategy on both flybys has been the same: send all of the JPGs first, then send the higher-res Raw images. This assures that in case of failure during this process, which will take months, we get the most data up front.
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there a plenty of rocks you can photograph right here on this planet!
Some of them even manage to post on /. !
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He could be a politician.
Amazingly... (Score:2)
None at all, as probes tend to travel at uniform speed in a uniform direction unless acted on by a force, and NASA's employees were in the office that day anyway.