Question:NASA’s ambitious inter-planetary (deep-space probe) mission New Horizons is on course to flyby an object in Kuiper belt named as-
(a)Proxima Centauri star
(b)Benu Asteroid
(c)Ultima Thule
(d)Ceres dwarf planet
Answer: (c)
- NASA’s ambitious deep-space probe is on its course to fly by the farthest observed object in solar system ‘2014 MU69’ and expected to reach on New Year’s Day in 2019, then it will known as ‘Ultima Thule’.
- This term was used in medieval times which means “beyond the known world”.
New Horizons Mission:
- New Horizons mission was launched was on January 19, 2006. It proceeded to Jupiter for gravity and scientific studies in February 2007 and in summer 2015 conducted a six-month-long reconnaissance flyby study of Pluto and its moons. It culminated with Pluto closest approach on July 14, 2015.
- New Horizons seeks to understand where Pluto and its Moons “fit in” with inner rocky planets and the outer gas giants (terrestrial and Jovian planets of the solar systems).
- Using Hubble telescope, new horizons team have discovered four previously moons of Pluto: Nix, Hydra, Styx and Kerberos. The same space telescope has discovered the ‘Ultima Thule’.
Kuiper Belt:
- Kuiper Belt is a region that extends from the orbit of Neptune (at 30 AU) to approximately 50 AU from the Sun.
- The Kuiper Belt is named after a scientist named Gerard Kuiper.
- There are bits of rock and ice, comets, and dwarf planets. Besides Pluto, two other interesting Kuiper Belt Objects are Eris and Haumea.
Note- Astronomical unit (AU) is the unit of distance, equals the average distance between sun and earth i.e. 150 million kilometres.
By Ramayan Upadhyay
Links:
https://www.space.com/39963-new-horizons-flyby-target-nickname.html
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/overview/index.html