On January 1st the New Horizons spacecraft will ring in the New Year in
a way we've never seen before: by flying past the most distant object in the
solar system ever attempted, and we are going to bring it to you live. Welcome
back to Launch Pad, I'm Christian Ready your friendly neighborhood astronomer
well I can't believe this but I've been given an amazing Christmas present and
that is to attend the New Horizons flyby of the Kuiper belt object Ultima Thule
on early morning January 1st of New Year's Day and I am so excited to have
this present that I want to share it with you in a 24 hour livestream
extravaganza! Now I'm gonna tell you all about the livestream details in a moment,
but first let's just take a quick update of the New Horizons mission. In August,
New Horizons acquired its first image of Ultima Thule. This object is a billion
kilometres beyond Pluto, and New Horizons is approaching it at 14 kilometers per
second. Now this means that if there were to be any debris surrounding Ultima
Thule, such as moons, fragments, particles, or maybe even a ring system,
they could prove fatal to New Horizons if it struck it at that speed. So the
mission team used New Horizons' Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager or
LORRI telescope to take very deep images of Ultima Thule. Now the original mission
plan called for New Horizons to pass within 3,500 kilometers of Ultima Thule.
This would be about three times closer than New Horizons approached Pluto.
Had there been any hazards, the mission team could maneuver the spacecraft to a
more distant 10,000 kilometer flyby. This would have meant for safer flyby,
but it also would have resulted in lower resolution data. Thankfully, the hazard
avoidance team couldn't find any debris within the flyby radius of the
spacecraft. This means that New Horizons is cleared hot to buzz Ultima
Thule as originally planned. And so we're going to get the highest resolution data
possible...eventually, that is. Remember, Ultima Thule is about six light
hours from Earth. And not only that, but New Horizons is broadcasting at a data
rate of about 1 kilobit per second. That means it's going to take two full
years to download all of the data. However, the team already has a plan in
place to get us the first image as soon as possible. The schedule of events calls
for New Horizons to fly past Ultima at about 12:33 a.m. Eastern Standard
Time on January 1st. After the flyby, the spacecraft will
orient its main antenna back toward Earth and transmit an
"I survived" signal. That signal will need about six hours to traverse...well pretty
much the solar system. So at 10 a.m. on January 1st, the "I survived" signal should
arrive at Mission Control at the Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel Maryland.
The second order of business will be to receive the first thumbnail image of the
close approach, which should come in sometime around maybe 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.
But the point is that we're going to have to be patient because the
speed of light is a constant and you just can't do any better than that.
But while we are waiting, we're going to have a New Year's celebration unlike
anything we've ever done before. I'm partnering with my good friend Tony
Darnell over at Deep Astronomy and the wonderful folks at Tomorrow TV to begin
a livestream around 12:00 noon on December 31st, going all the way to 12:00
noon the following day. Now during the stream, Tony and I will talk with
scientists and engineers from the New Horizons mission, from NASA, from the
Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, and also with fellow science
communicators including, but not limited to, Fraser Cain from Universe Today, Emily
Lakdawalla from the Planetary Society, Space Mike from Epic Future Space, Scott
Manley, John Michael Godier, Sean Carroll, and
certainly last but definitely not least, Dr. Alan Stern, the principal
investigator for New Horizons. Now if you would like to help support this
livestream, you certainly can do that in a couple of ways.
You can join my Patreon, or if you like this shirt you can have it. I have a Teespring
account and you can check out some Launch Pad merch. As a matter of fact,
maybe I should do a commemorative livestream shirt. What do you think? And
you know what else? If you can't even kick in a couple of
bucks, don't worry about it. Just go ahead and like and share this and tell others
about this event because we want to make this THE event to watch on New Year's.
Now if you are new here, I invite you to subscribe and ring that
notification bell. That way you won't miss out on any notifications when the
stream comes up, when it goes out, when it comes back on again you should get a
notification when we're live live if you ring the notification bell. And above all else,
I appreciate you being here with me on Launch Pad Astronomy. I've learned so much
this year in 2018, and I have so many ideas for 2019. But for now, let us celebrate
the flyby of Ultima Thule. Thank you so much for watching, have a very Merry
Christmas, and I'll see you on New Year's Eve.
Let's do this! HAHA! It's gonna be awesome!