After the sensational succeeder of Modern Horizons’voyage past Pluto , NASA sought foreign new earth for it to search . While the next target , 2014 MU69 , was opt for practicality , it just became a draw more interesting .
Most of the trans - Plutonian objects we get it on about would require unrealistically large course chastisement for New Horizons to chew the fat them . accordingly , MU69 was chosen by default , being in the correct stead at the right time to get a visit . Once picked , however , missionary station deviser want tolearn moreabout their target .
On July 17 , they get their chance , as MU69passed in frontof star MU20170617 , as construe from a belittled patch of Earth . Although MU69 is too upstage and little for us to learn much about via direct observance ( beyond detecting areddish hue ) , the way it intervene with light from more distant object can reveal its shape . telescope in Patagonia , Argentina , observed not one plunge in the lead ’s brightness level but two . Either this means that 2014 MU69 is two asteroids in closemouthed orbit or it ’s an “ extreme prolate spheroid ” , shaped like a dope or an hourglass . An even more interesting explanation lies in between : The two objective actually tint , sleep with as a contact binary . MU69 is either 30 kilometers ( 20 miles ) long or two objects each about half that size .
“ This fresh finding is simply dramatic . The form of MU69 is truly provocative , and could mean another first for New Horizons hold out to a binary object in the Kuiper Belt,”Dr Alan Sternof Southwest Research Institute said in astatement . He added to IFLScience : " It ’s exciting and means we are more likely to see an exotic relic of solar system formation during our flyby on 1 Jan 2019 . "
MU69 is so small and remote its shadow only passed over a modest area , which unfortunately miss large pre - existing telescopes to observe it . therefore , a 60 - fellow member squad from the New Horizons mission was deploy to southerly Argentina in the middle of wintertime , taking 24 scope with them . as luck would have it , they had great local support – the Argentinian Government even closed a nearby highway for two 60 minutes to forestall headlamp disturbing their view . Despite high winds and biting cold , the New Horizons squad were capable to make observations with enough telescopes to substantiate the doubled dip .
As challenging as the conditions were , the office was still in effect than the block out of an even fainter star seven days to begin with , when the shadow fell mostly over the Pacific Ocean .
New Horizons ’ encounter with MU69 will occur on January 1 , 2019 , preventing many people at NASA from partying too hard the nighttime before .
The star MU69 is find out briefly block did n’t even have a number in star topology catalogues , but was knight MU20170617 in recognition of this issue .
