There is a distant, dim domain of eternal twilight at the outer reaches of our Solar System, where our Sun can shine softly with only a faint, faint fire. This remote region is called Kuiper belt, and is home to the dwarf planet Pluto, its large icy moon, Charon, and a host of other frozen objects including a dancing sea of ​​icy comet nuclei. Fragile and ephemeral, the comets that approach the bright light and melting heat of our Star, are the refugees fleeing this remote region of perpetual twilight. In February 2020, NASA planetary scientists new Horizons mission to Pluto, and beyond, announced that data collected from this mission is providing new insights into how the planets and planetesimals–the building blocks of the planets–were born in our primordial Solar System. Tea new Horizons the spaceship rose past the old Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) Arrokoth (2014 MU 69) on January 1, 2019, giving humanity its first close-up view of one of those mysterious icy relics from the birth of our Solar System nearly five billion years ago.

Using detailed data on by Arrokoth shape, geology, color, and composition, collected during an unprecedented flyby that took place more than 4,000,000,000 miles from Earth, planetary scientists announced in February 2020 that they have been able to answer a long-standing question about planetesimal origins, and thus have made a great advance in our understanding of how the planets were born. The team reports those findings in a set of three articles published in the February 13, 2020, issue of the journal. Sciences. The scientists also presented their findings at a press conference held at the annual event. American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in Seattle, Washington.

486958 Arrokoth is the temporary name of 2014 MU69has transneptunian object. It’s a binary contact22 miles long, made up of a primordial ice duo planetesimals that measure 13 miles and 9 miles wide. Both planetesimals have been dubbed Latest Y thulerespectively, and are joined along their principal axes. Latest is flatter than thule, and is actually an aggregate of 8 or more smaller objects, each about 3 miles across. These smaller objects are thought to have merged before Latest Y thule put and merge together. Because there have apparently been few or no catastrophic impacts on Arrokoth since it formed, its formation story has been preserved in the deep freeze of our Solar System, far from the molten heat of our turbulent star.

Arrokoth it is both the most distant and the most primitive object in our Solar System to be visited by a spacecraft. It was discovered on June 26, 2014 by Dr. Marc Bule and the new Horizons Search team using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) as part of a hunt KBO which would become the goal of new Horizons on his first extended mission. This discovery required the use of the HST because, with an apparent magnitude of only 26, Arrokoth it is too faint to be observed except by the most powerful telescopes. Tea HST it also has the ability to perform extremely accurate astrometry. This means that it can provide a reliable determination of an orbit.

Arrokoth was elected over two other candidates KBOand so it became the fate of New Horizons’ extended mission beyond Pluto. With an orbital period of about 298 years and a low orbital inclination and eccentricity, Arrokoth a cold classic is designated KBO.

the temporary name Arrokoth comes from the Powhatan region of Virginia and Maryland, where by Arrokoth discovery occurred. Tea HST Y Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory both operate in Maryland and are primarily responsible for by Arrokoth 2014 discovery.

Pluto and beyond

On July 14, 2015, after his perilous decade-long space odyssey, new Horizons reached its main objective Kuiper belt–tea ice dwarf planet Pluto and its family of five icy moons, including its large moon, Charon, which is almost half the size of Pluto. new Horizonsafter successfully making its historic closest approach to the Pluto system, it sent back to Earth some revealing images of this faraway little world with a big heart.

For most of the 20th century, astronomers considered Pluto to be a lonely little world, where it inhabits the outer domain of our Solar System. However, this point of view changed in 1992, when a second KBO was discovered in this region. Because of this discovery, planetary scientists realized that Pluto is far from alone in this remote, frozen region of perpetual twilight. In fact, Pluto orbits our star in the company of myriad others of its mysterious and frigid kind. Since 1992, astronomers have discovered a multitude of other small, rocky worlds, very similar to Pluto, in search of these distant bodies. Some of the other distant inhabitants of our Solar System’s deep freeze also orbit our star in eccentric orbits, as does Pluto. Tea dwarf planet eris is one of the most important of these scattered disk objects. Discovered in 2005, eris it is slightly more massive than Pluto, and its discovery is what forced planetary scientists to realize that Pluto is just one of many. As a result, at that time, poor little Pluto was unceremoniously evicted from the pantheon of major planets, and is now classified as a ice dwarf–a mother dwarf planet, target has planet Nevertheless. Before that, Pluto was classified as the ninth main planet of our star.

KBO they are generally believed to be made up primarily of a combination of ice and rock. Tea Kuiper belt extends from the orbit of Neptune to about 50 astronomical units (AU). A A is equal to the average distance between the Earth and the Sun, which is approximately 93,000,000 miles. The average distance from Neptune to our star is about 30.1 A–its perihelion (when it is closest to our Star) is 29.8 Awhile his aphelion (when it is furthest from our Star) is 30.4 A.

After completing its primary mission of a flyby of Pluto and its moons, the New Horizon spacecraft was maneuvered for its future flight over the distant Arrokoth.

Arrokoth and its many mysteries

Arrokoth, as the most remote, primitive and purest object ever explored by a spacecraft, it has a unique story to tell us. This small, remote object has enabled planetary scientists to make important progress in their understanding of how planets formed in the early Solar System. The first post-flyby images obtained from new Horizons in 2019 revealed that Arrokoth it actually consists of two interconnected blades with smooth surfaces as well as the same composition. This indicates that it is most likely a pristine object, and as such provides valuable information about how it was formed.

These exciting new finds add to the many historic achievements of an important mission. NASA discoveries obtained from new Horizons they have enhanced our knowledge and understanding of how planetary bodies were born in our Solar System, as well as in distant planetary systems beyond our own.

In the future, the new Horizons the team plans to use data with higher resolution. The scientists also plan to use sophisticated supercomputer simulations to model how Arrokoth it may have formed billions of years ago.

His analysis has already revealed that by Arrokoth The “binary contact” lobes were originally two separate objects, orbiting close to each other at slow speeds. Finally, the duo gently collided and merged to form the 22mm body seen by New Horizons.

This information indicates that Arrokoth was born during the gravitational collapse of solid particle clouds in the original primordial solar nebula that gave rise to our Sun and its family of planets, moons and other objects, about 4.56 billion years ago. In dramatic contrast to a high-velocity collision and hierarchical build-up, the particles that created Arrokoth they gently merged as the cloud collapsed. This indicates that Arrokoth, and other similar objects that inhabited the ancient Solar System, gradually increased in size to form larger and larger bodies. In a way that has been compared to the way fossils show the way species on our own planet evolved, persisting planetesimals I like it Arrokoth reveal how planets evolved in our own Solar System, and beyond.

Arrokoth It wouldn’t look the way it does if it had formed as a result of a violent collision in our primordial Solar System. Instead, the evidence indicates that it was formed as a result of a more complex and gentle ballet in which the two dancers planetesimals they slowly orbited each other before their dance gravitationally attracted them both, thus forming the two individual lobes planetesimal observed today.

Two other important lines of evidence support this scenario. The uniform surface composition and color of Arrokoth they reveal that it formed from materials dancing very close to each other, as local collapse patterns within the clouds predicted. This is in contrast to a model indicating that it formed from material located in regions further apart from the primordial core. sun nebula.

In addition, the flattened shape of each of by Arrokoth two lobes, as well as its very close polar alignment and equator, indicate that it was born in an orderly cradle. Also, by Arrokoth The smooth surface suggests that its face has been well preserved in the dark, deep freeze of our Solar System since the end of the era of planet formation. This means that Arrokoth shows physical properties indicating that it was formed as a result of the gradual and smooth merging of objects that formed close to each other in the sun nebula.

The three articles published in the February 13, 2020 edition of the magazine Sciences they are based on ten times more data than the first published reports of the new findings. Together, the documents provide a more complete description of by Arrokoth mysterious origins.

new Horizons continue observing objects dancing in the distance Kuiper belt. In the summer of 2020, the new Horizons team plans to use a large telescope on Earth to search for more KBO that can be studied, and also search for other potential targets for the spacecraft.

As of this writing, the new Horizons The spacecraft is 7.1 billion kilometers from Earth. It is still operating normally, as it soars through this uncharted, frigid twilight region at speeds of almost 50,400 kilometers per hour.

Principal Investigator of New Horizons Dr. Alan Stern explained his reasons for giving Arrokoth your name:

“Name ‘Arrokoth’ reflects the inspiration of looking to the skies and wondering about the stars and the worlds beyond our own. That desire to learn is at the heart of the New Horizons’ mission, and we are honored to join the Powhatan community and the people of Maryland in this celebration of discovery.”