While the rest of the world is watching and waiting for new information about Starman (a dummy from SpaceX, dressed in a new spacesuit developed by it and sitting in the driver's seat of a Tesla electric rodster heading towards Mars), the NASA space agency has published the most distant space photo in the history of mankind, taken by apparatus "New Horizons". At the time of the photograph (December 5, 2017), the device was 6.12 billion kilometers from Earth.
In addition to the range record, New Horizons photography has other stunning features. The station managed to capture several objects of the Kuiper belt, located at a distance of 55 astronomical units from Earth, beyond the orbit of Neptune. The belt consists of small cosmic bodies and accumulations of various substances such as ice, ammonia and methane.
Recall that one astronomical unit is equal to 149.6 million kilometers, that is, the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Thus, the objects that New Horizons managed to photograph are located at a distance of over eight billion kilometers from us. In particular, the station, moving towards its main target - the object of the Kuiper belt 2014 MU69, was able to obtain images of several dwarf planets 2012 HZ84 and 2012 HE85, made in false colors.
Kuiper belt objects 2012 HZ84 (left) and 2012 HE85 (right).
On the same day, but two hours earlier, the device took another photo. This time, the object for the picture was a more distant target - the Well of Wishes star cluster (NGC 3532).
Wishing Well Star Cluster (NGC 3532).
From 2015 to 2016, the device carried out a whole photoset of detailed images of the dwarf planet Pluto, thanks to which astronomers have another opportunity to study and analyze the surface of this celestial body at an unprecedented new detailed level.
It should be noted that the "New Horizons" is not the first device that managed to get so far from the Earth. Before him there were such probes as Voyager 1/2 and Pioneer 10/11. However, New Horizons is the only man-made spacecraft whose camera is still in working order. At the moment, the probe is in hibernation mode and is moving towards its main mission target. Scientists expect that in 2019, the device will be able to capture the 2014 MU69 planetoid, which is 1.6 billion kilometers from Pluto.
Promotional video:
Nikolay Khizhnyak
