After the New Horizons space vehicle made its historical flyby of Pluto inJuly 2015 , the plan was always to send out it further out of the Solar System to analyse other objects . Now , the ballistic capsule has returned the first skill from such observations .
New Horizons observed a Kuiper Belt physical object ( KBO ) ontwo separate occasionscalled 1994 JR1 , which valuate 145 kilometers ( 90 Swedish mile ) across . KBOs are remnants of the early Solar System , in the physical body of polar comets and asteroids , so studying them could reveal of import clew about our beginnings .
These observations were n’t like with the Pluto flyby though , when New Horizons flew just a few tens of 1000 of km above the surface . or else , New Horizons snapped the KBO from a length of 111 million kilometers ( 69 million miles ) in early April , following preliminary observations from more than twice as far away in November 2015 .
But this post - Pluto science is crucial , because it helps New Horizons practice for a more ambitious missionary post in 2019 . On January 1 of that year , missionary post scientistswill sendNew Horizons flying past a KBO called 2014 MU69 nigher than it add up to Pluto , although the exact flyby distance is not known yet .
As for JR1 , well , we did actually learn a bit from these view . First , scientist were capable to pinpoint its location to within 1,000 kilometers ( 621 miles ) , the most exact for any pocket-size KBO . This allowed them to find out a possibility that JR1 might be a distant satellite of Pluto . They were also able to work out JR1 ’s revolution speed , clock it at one revolution every 5.4 Earth hours .
Above , an animation of JR1 moving from two of 20 observations made in April 2016 . Top left is an intragroup camera reflection , which NASA call " a kind of selfie . " NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI
“ That ’s comparatively tight for a Kuiper belt object , ” allege science team member John Spencer , from the Southwest Research Institute ( SwRI ) in Colorado , in astatement . “ This is all part of the excitement of explore new places and seeing things never seen before . ”
Before New Horizons reach 2014 MU69 , it will meditate about 20 more KBOs , pending approval for this run commission from NASA ( which seems a done deal at the moment ) . Pluto may have been impressive , but these endeavors will tell us even more about the outer Solar System than ever before .
