New Images of the Distant Ultima Thule Object Have Surprised Scientists (arstechnica.com) 65
A reader shares a report from Ars Technica: Back in early January, when scientists pulled down their first batch of data from the New Horizons spacecraft, they celebrated an odd snowman-shaped object in the outer Solar System. From this first look, it appeared as though Ultima Thule, formally named 2014 MU69, consisted of two spheres in contact with one another -- a contact binary. Now that scientists have downloaded more data from the distant spacecraft, however, our view of Ultima Thule has changed. A sequence of images captured as New Horizons moved away from the object in the Kuiper Belt at a velocity of 50,000 km/hour, taken about 10 minutes after closest approach, show a much flatter appearance. After analyzing these new images, scientists say the larger lobe more closely resembles a large pancake, and the smaller lobe looks a bit like a walnut. The new photos reveal a dramatically different object because they were taken from a different angle than the images that were downloaded first. As planetary scientist Alex Parker noted on Twitter, "The larger lobe looks to have a shape similar to some of the pancake moons of Saturn, like Atlas." However, Saturn's moons were believed to have formed near the gas giant, in the midst of its rings, rather than in deep space.
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Did both parts have a high rotation? (Score:2)
Doesn't one of the moons of Saturn have an equatorial mountain range, apparently caused by deposition in the plane of the equator only?
So maybe the larger lobe formed out of a disk of material which was deposited at the equator, and built the object up into this pancake shape.
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Iapetus.
There's a few ideas as to what caused the ridge but there's not saying for sure. The front runner seems to be that the ridge is from having a fast rotation early on. As it cooled this ridge solidified and the moon became more spherical as the rotation slowed. At least that's what I've taken from how it's described. It could have also been deposits from a debris disk/ring.
There is also an idea that it's the ridge that determined the rotational axis of the body and not the rotation of the body that fo
MMM pancakes with walnuts (Score:2)
all we need now is some space twinberry (or space maple) syrup.
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Banana walnut pancakes FTW
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Yeah, pancakes. When I was a kid during the Apollo era, every kid (and most adults) assumed that by 2018 we would have moon bases, giant space stations, maybe even colonies on Mars--that Apollo was just the beginning of mankind's journey into space.
Now it's 2018 and the U.S. can't even put a man in orbit. And NASA gives us pancakes. Delicious.
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Damn, I meant 2019. Somehow even worse.
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Wrong. We were figuring Moon bases, and the *world* really accessing space... by 2001.
As the lady said, We Are Not Amused.
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NASA is pretty useless, but that's not where the US space industry is any more. Both SpaceX and Blue Origin will be man-rating launch systems this year. Blue Origin will only be suborbital this year, but they plan to do it a lot - New Shepard is extremely re-usable. SpaceX will have us back to putting men into orbit, probably this year.
Apollo-era NASA did great things, but it was 100% focused on "man on moon", and 0% focused on building a platform for future rocketry. They wen off the rails with the shu
Re: MMM pancakes with walnuts (Score:2)
Seems the gov't shutdown made analysts hungry.
Don't know my own strength (Score:3)
I knew it was a mistake trying that new walnut pancake recipe. And I probably went a bit overboard tossing it. Please accept my apologies.
Take your pills SJW. (Score:1, Insightful)
It's only the likes of you who instantly think about "races" and hate and sexism.
We just hear a name from a mythology, older than that of the one who raped you as a child.
Says the 'tard with the personal attacks. (Score:1)
Thank you for validating the the parent comment is correct. By showing that no argument against it could be found, even after intense struggling.
Re:Still didn't change the name, eh? (Score:4, Interesting)
Bad idea to change the name. It's better dilute the Nazi connotations by ordinary use.
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A valid point, but the name still needs to be changed. Either that or define it's orbit as the edge of the solar system, and I prefer the Heliopause for that. "Ultima Thule" means (approx.) "The ends of the earth", and giving the body that name puts an artificial boundary in people's minds.
Re: Still didn't change the name, eh? (Score:3, Insightful)
He wore a tacky shirt! We must ruin his and his team's crowning moment and try to end his career! No wonder so many people hate you miserable dipshits.
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I see it still has the Nazi name. How was this not changed?
Well, Russia pioneered space flight using their Nazi scientists, and America further advanced space flight using their Nazi scientists. So it's only fair to recognize the Nazi contribution to space.
Although it is dubious if the German space scientists were really Nazis. Most probably just joined the Nazi party to get funding for their research. Kinda sorta like what university staff do today to get funding. Claiming that your research will cure global warming or beat the Chinese is a good way to get fu
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Although it is dubious if the German space scientists were really Nazis.
Murder Van Braun knowingly made weapons that could only be used to attack civilians, and were used that way every day. Being a Nazi or not is small potatoes in comparison, he's drenched in the blood of murdered children. This isn't like the moral quagmire around building ICBMs (which, arguably, prevented war).
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You need to study a bit more Greek. Ultima Thule comes from classic Greek and means, approx., "the ends of the earth". Or are you a believer in sympathetic magic?
(FWIW, I am a believer in sympathetic magic, but you complaint still seems silly...and says more about you than about what you're complaining about. Note: Because I believe in sympathetic magic I avoid ads and won't use a swastika as a solar symbol. It does work, but it works internally, and you should notice the effects and act to achieve the
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Ultima Thule existed long before a few mystical minded Nazis borrowed this. It's so obscure in Nazi lore that even most neo-Nazis don't know what it is.
Next up, we can't create bad paintings of mountains because that's what Hitler did.
Carry on (Score:2, Informative)
This is why I come to slashdot - for all of the intellectual comments.
Let me know if one is made.
What this object is (Score:2)
Why that wasn't in the summary I don't know, but it made me click on the link.
Can we pick a better source, please? (Score:2)
Ars Technica is great.
But it is hardly the authoritative source for space news. Yet here on Slashdot we post from Ars instead of any of a couple of dozen more authoritative sources. There are astronomy sites, general science sites, planetary exploration sites, rocket science sites.... Heck, go straight to the NASA project site.
A computer tech blog isn't the last place to go for news about a NASA planetary science project, but it certainly is pretty far down the list.
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Science based reporting to the public is flawed. There is a big gap from the raw data, to the over simplified and often inaccurate general use "Science is Cool! Really it is!" reports.
Part of the problem is general news sites target people with an 8th grade education. Why 8th grade? Because after 8th grade students will tend to focus more on particular tracks of study. So in depth or more advanced explanations is often over most of the populations head, (even those with PHD because they will probably have a
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I assure you that none of the advanced sketch is over the head of any STEM PhD who has managed to look up from a self-imposed exile amid a daunting tower of books and pre-prints for more than five minutes at any time over the past six months.
This criteria, of course, narrows the field considerably.
But don't blame this on specializ
Re: Can we pick a better source, please? (Score:2)
I assure you that none of the advanced sketch is over the head of any STEM PhD who has managed to look up from a self-imposed exile amid a daunting tower of books and pre-prints for more than five minutes at any time over the past six months.
Be sure to take a breath every now and then...
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Yes, the argument about PhDs was a bit misguided. I suspect that *some* humanities PhDs are allergic to math, but hardly most of them. Additionally, I don't find the NASA raw data all that compelling, and I much prefer a summarized form. Something like the Scientific American used to publish before the latest round of dumbing things down.
Re: Can we pick a better source, please? (Score:2)
Ars Technica is great.
Sure, now we just need to redefine "great"
It's written by people who largely did not read for pleasure during their childhoods and thus should've chosen different careers. I usually can't finish one of their articles without ending up utterly disgusted with their amateurish "literary" skills.
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This sounds like most internet sites designed to make money from ads. Content creators are hired because they're cheap not because they're good at writing or that they can understand what they are writing bout. Ars Technica is a thousand times better than the average gaming site for exampoe.
I guess it makes sense? (Score:3)
Doesn't an oblate spheroid make sense (as constituent parts)?
In theory-space, particles would be pulled together (assuming zero starting motion to all particles in a cloud, all the same density, size, and frictionlessness) would form into a theoretically-perfect sphere by gravity.
But IRL these particles don't start out with zero motion....in fact the almost all have SOME motion, as well as slight attractiveness to each other and of course friction. As these all pull toward a centroid, the conservation of angular momentum causing it to spin faster and form an oblate rather than a sphere. In fact, one might be able to infer some information about the initial formation-state of the body by its oblateness, particularly if one could get a statistically useful cross-section of the materials that comprise it?
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As Morrissey said, some things are oblater than others.
Jupiter is big and soft and spins like a dervish but it still looks round to the naked eye.
I suppose it could have happened that all the bits of this thing came together to act synergistically rather than mostly cancelling out but it seems improbable. And if it was spinning that fast wouldn't it have broken apart? Depends how all the forces scale, I suppose.
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Not really. It's visibly a slight ovoid in good telescope.
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Not having a telescope of any kind, plus it being day, I looked on teh webs.
The photos all look pretty round to me. Certainly closer to a sphere than a Smartie.
Dunno but ... (Score:4, Funny)
"closely resembles a large pancake, and the smaller lobe looks a bit like a walnut."
Some scientist should have breakfast before going to work.
Hey! (Score:2)
Your ship looks like walnut and a pancake got squished together...
Han: "Hey!"
Noticed earlier (Score:1)
Roughly a month ago, somebody "glued" the first two semi-clear images together into an animated gif to give a rough sense of stereo, and someone noted the larger lobe appeared relatively flat. I think it was on Reddit. I couldn't find the comment itself, but here's an example of the image:
https://www.reddit.com/r/gifs/... [reddit.com]
(The image was posted multiple times. Reddit has dupe issues too ;-)