NASA Spacecraft Detects Weird Anomaly Days Ahead of Ultima Thule Flyby

Sputnik.com ^ | 23:08 23.12.2018

[BenLurkin]

Only a week before its expected meeting with Kuiper Belt object (KBO) Ultima Thule on New Year's Day, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has not been able to detect the predictable and consistent variations in reflectivity — or ‘light curve' in the jargon of astronomers — that accompany all celestial objects in orbit near a bright star.

"It's really a puzzle," agreed Alan Stern, NASA's New Horizons principal investigator, cited by Gizmodo.

Southwest Research Institute mission scientist Marc Buie suggested that the rotational point of Ultima Thule could currently be aligned directly toward the NASA spacecraft as it approaches. From that perspective, the spacecraft would not detect the shifts in brightness as the irregularly-shaped rock tumbles through space.

SETI Institute spokesperson Mark Showalter offered another explanation, positing that "Ultima [Thule] may be surrounded by a cloud of dust that obscures its light curve, much the way a comet's coma often overwhelms the light reflected by its central [core]," cited by Gizmodo.com.

University of Virginia researcher and New Horizons assistant project scientist Anne Verbiscer, offered that Ultima Thule could be occluded by multiple little moons — each tumbling object producing a discrete light curve — creating, in her words: a "jumbled superposition of light curves."

[PIF]

maybe it left with Oumuamua ...

[fruser1]

Probably just changing course.

[Deaf Smith]

Thule is one shaped like Mr Hanky?

That is not a cloud of dust, it's gas.

[fieldmarshaldj]

*ping*

[wally_bert]

Proton storm most likely.

[smokingfrog]

Fake asteroid.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks fieldmarshaldj.

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[smokingfrog]

http://www.ultimathule.info/audio_programmes2018/UT_1229_56k.mp3

[blueunicorn6]

“We can’t see it,” said NASA.

They always turn on their cloaking device until their weapons are in range.

I can defeat them if somebody can get me:

Four raisins
A pine tree air freshener thing
A moustache cup
Marie Osmond
A CD of Air Supply’s Biggest Hits

[Ciaphas Cain]

Final scene of Melancholia

[VietVet]

Well, that made absolutely no sense at all. Maybe one had to see the whole movie, but from this scene, to do so would have been a waste of time and attention.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

“...a jumbled superposition of light curves.”

Seriously? We girls KNOW how to light the Boudoir, on Earth or any other planet. ;)

[Chad_the_Impaler]

In the sci-fi novel The Mysterious Planet by Lester del Rey, the Thulian spacecraft absorb light. Earthlings called their world Planet X at first.

[TigersEye]

Who the heck named it Ultima Thule? It just reminds me too much of the name Thulsa Doom.

[oldasrocks]

Maybe they coated it with Vaseline for insertion?

[JustaTech]

Just to state the obvious, if it’s not spinning then it’s virtually certain to not be natural. Accretion preserves angular momentum. If there is no angular momentum, the method of construction could not have been accretion, to a very high level of confidence.

[fatima]

Bump.

[yesthatjallen]

New Horizons spacecraft has not been able to detect the predictable and consistent variations in reflectivity — or ‘light curve' in the jargon of astronomers — that accompany all celestial objects in orbit near a bright star.

The ultimate discovery.

Our solar system is self-contained inside a closed system.

There is nothing beyond.

I'd love it to be true just to shut up all the theoretical astrophysicists who give us endless theories about the nature of the universe based on nothing but mathematical speculation and suppositions.

[BenLurkin]