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Emily Lakdawalla @elakdawalla
, 5 tweets, 3 min read Read on Twitter
MU69 appears as a bi-lobed baby comet in latest New Horizons images! What's a contact binary and how do they form? I gotchu: planetary.org/blogs/emily-la…
Just added this really nice illustration to the article on how contact binaries form -- nice work by @jtuttlekeane showing the value of art and science together. #STEAM
Two nearly perfect little spheres, gently squished together.
Haha yes, "pre-duck," I approve
Less-evolved duck #pokemon
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Well, isn't that a textbook example of a contact binary.
(Contrary to what was just said on the briefing though, this is not the first ever explored contact binary. It's the most pristine one, to be sure. I'll have more on this in a blog post later this morning.)
I'm super interested in the high-albedo area in the neck.
Read 5 tweets
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In lock with carrier!
Telemetry symbols locked!
(No matter what actually happened, New Horizons is still OK and working on its correct schedule!)
Read 8 tweets
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Okay so I tuned in briefly to the MU69 webcast and OMG Olivier Barnouin-Jha just spewed more OSIRIS-REx science than I've heard since they arrived at Bennu. I took a lot of screen caps but may not be able to do much with them until tomorrow
I do have some time, so here we go with OSIRIS-REx science screen caps. First up, some stuff on Bennu's phase curve. It shows "bluing" at lower phase angles. This is information only spectroscopists could love, but I know some spectroscopists, so here you go. 1/n
Olivier Barnouin-Jha: Ryugu is much more uniform in color than Bennu is. Look at all the spectral variation! 2/n
Read 16 tweets

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#Mu69: contact binary, peanut, snowman, BB8 droid, balancing balls, & cute lil Kuiper Belt Object who will upend what we thought we knew because that's how science works.

Tech thread from today's news release:
Q: What's a contact binary?
A: What used to be a binary system (2 things orbiting each other) that got squished together (contact) until they're now 1 lumptastic thing.

Details (with diagrams!): planetary.org/blogs/emily-la…
For #MU69, it looks like it was very gentle squishage. Like, the softest of squeezy-taps from two balls in space to one wonky lil friend.

All that brightness in the neck? Probably fine powders settling into the seam.

So soft. So gentle. So friendly.
Read 12 tweets
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En este hilo algunas curiosidades del sobrevuelo de la @NewHorizons a #UltimaThule (como van saliendo):
- No sabemos la forma exacta o si es binario.
- La resolución de las mejores imágenes será de ~35 m/pixel (mejores que Plutón).

investigacionyciencia.es/blogs/astronom… @IyC_es #UltimaFlyby
#UltimaThule #UltimaFlyby
- La tasa de transferencia de datos es de 1 kb/s (20,000 veces menos que una conexión a internet casera)
- Solo hasta el 2020 se descargaran todos los datos.
- Después del sobrevuelo le quedan 20 años de vida a las baterías de la @NewHorizons2015
#UltimaThule #UltimaFlyby
- El Sol desde la distancia de Ultima tiene un brillo de apenas 100 veces el de la Luna llena y un tamaño angular menor que el de Saturno visto desde la Tierra.
- Desde la nave Ultima se verá con el tamaño angular de la Luna desde la Tierra.
Read 51 tweets
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In just a few hours I will depart for Maryland for New Horizons' New Years flyby of the Kuiper Belt Object (486958) 2014 MU69. Before I go, I thought I would re-tell some of the stories about how we came to know about this little world.
I wrote a piece for NASA that tells some of these stories, and you can read it here: blogs.nasa.gov/pluto/2016/06/…
I'll be making some new illustrations as I go along here, so bear with me.
Read 54 tweets
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I hate that this is evergreen.
Related: I suspect #ThingsNASAWouldTweet will be reviving soon. Again.
New Horizons, the spacecraft that brought us excellent Pluto pix, soars by Kuiper Bekt object Mu69 on New Year’s Eve.

With the shutdown, NASA TV is out, but some brave media will surrender their celebrations to share with you. Here’s the detail of timing: planetary.org/blogs/emily-la…
Read 3 tweets
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La historia de Plutón podría dar para novela. Descubierto en 1930 por Clyde Tombaugh, fue durante más de medio siglo el noveno planeta del Sistema Solar. En 2006, se decidió reclasificarlo como planeta enano, algo que no hemos olvidado ni perdonado. Así que, hablemos de Plutón.
Porque, por mucho que ellos quisiesen hacer que nos olvidásemos de Plutón, su clasificación como planeta enano no hace que sea menos importante en la galaxia. De hecho, es el mayor objeto transneptuniano. Es decir, objetos que están más allá de la órbita de Neptuno.
Es, también, el segundo planeta enano más grande y masivo del Sistema Solar. Por eso no sorprende que, desde su descubrimiento, haya sido estudiado de todas las maneras posibles. La visita de New Horizons también nos ha servido para obtener mucha información que desconocíamos.
Read 46 tweets
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Hey all, I spelt "Epimetheus" wrong in this tweet of some amazing image processing, so to make up for it, I'm gonna tweet a thread of little factoids about the moon.
1) it looks like a potato that's been swiss cheesed.
(This image was taken by Cassini (❤) in 2007. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)
2) it's small, only about 72 miles (or 116 km) across!
Read 11 tweets

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