New Horizons has woken up.

[johnfosteruk]

After 6 months snoozing on it's way to the Kuiper Belt, New Horizons has been woken up and is ready to fly past the KBO Ultima Thule (a New Horizons team nickname for the object) - proper name 2014 MU19.

clicky

[Davey-T]

Link doesn't work for me.

Dave

[Mr niall]

28 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

Link doesn't work for me.

Dave

Try this one

https://astronomynow.com/2018/06/05/new-horizons-wakes-up-for-new-years-day-flyby/

[johnfosteruk]

43 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

Link doesn't work for me.

Dave

because I'm an idiot, now fixed.

[Demonperformer]

It seems incredible that it is nearly 3 years since the Pluto flyby ... how time has (also) flown by. I guess the fact that the majority of the article talks about how it was nicknamed reveals exactly how little we know about it ... for the next 206 days!

[Waddensky]

Great! I remember the build-up of suspense when New Horizons approached Pluto. Looking forward to the flyby of 2014 MU69, it's quite a mysterious object.

[Helen]

I've just finished reading Alan Stern's book about the mission - fascinating! (and makes you appreciate just how much hard work went into getting the mission approved let alone designed, built, operated...)   Well worth a read.

Helen

 

[Stub Mandrel]

Amazing to think it's visiting a planetoid no-one knew existed when the space probe was launched!

[johnfosteruk]

On 09/06/2018 at 18:38, Helen said:

I've just finished reading Alan Stern's book about the mission - fascinating! (and makes you appreciate just how much hard work went into getting the mission approved let alone designed, built, operated...)   Well worth a read.

Helen

 

Now added to my wishlist

 

[johnfosteruk]

On 09/06/2018 at 21:14, Stub Mandrel said:

Amazing to think it's visiting a planetoid no-one knew existed when the space probe was launched!

Even more amazing to think that it's first target was a planet when it launched in January 2006, and now it's not

 

[Stub Mandrel]

The irony is US Congress probably felt 'let Nasa tick off the last planet and they'll stop hassling us for ever more distant targets'.

Now there are plenty of similarly sized and no doubt equally interesting minor planets of equal status to Pluto and in urgent need of investigation ?