This one gif is better than any you could show me on the Internet . I guarantee it . Keep your weird Caterpillar or trip the light fantastic red-hot dogs . This ca n’t be dead .
What ’s it show ? This is the here and now that the next target for NASA ’s New Horizons mission , a small rock music in the KO’d Solar System , go by in front of a star as seen from Earth .
The event in the other first light of July 17 lasted a split up - sec , but it will give us more data about this rock-and-roll than we ’ve ever gleaned before . All from the shadow that was throw up over our planet .
“ It was the most historic eclipse on the side of the Earth , ” NASA ’s director of global science , Jim Green , recount the squad in astatement .
The Kuiper Belt Object ( KBO ) is squall 2014 MU69 . It measures roughly 22 to 40 kilometre ( 14 to 25 miles ) across , but we do n’t have it off for sure because it ’s so far away and swoon . It orbits 40 sentence further from the Sun than Earth .
We also do n’t really know what it looks like . It ’s recall to be leftover from the formation of our Solar System 4.6 billion years ago , but its exact characteristics are a mystery . Some creative person ’s impressions show it as areddish home , other estimate say it will look more like a gray asteroid .
New Horizons will be flying past the object on January 1 , 2019 . Before then , the team want to get as much data on MU69 as possible , which is why these events – make love as occultations – are so of import .
This was the third occultation to occur , afterprevious eventson June 3 and 10 . On this result , at least five peregrine telescopes in Argentina are call back to have see the fantasm of the object as it guide over Earth , from which datum will be harvest . Other telescopes also observed the shadow , include NASA ’s roving flying lookout station , SOFIA .
Alan Stern , the principal research worker on the New Horizons mission , told IFLScience that they ask to have the first results from these events in a few calendar week .
“ We spied the shape and size of 2014 MU69 for the first time , a Kuiper Belt scientific gem we will explore just over 17 months from now , ” he said in astatement . “ Thanks to this success we can now plan the upcoming flyby with much more authority . ”
" We did it ! " he added . fairly adept .
