Once More, Into the Unknown

Out There iconOut There
By Corey S. Powell
Dec 31, 2018 8:26 PMOct 18, 2019 7:59 PM
Snapshot of the solar system, highlighting the various populations in the Kuiper Belt (colors). That whole outer zone is unexplored...but not for long. (Credit: Wes Fraser, National Research Council of Canada)
'Snapshot of the solar system, highlighting the various <a href='http:

Newsletter

Sign up for our email newsletter for the latest science news
 

Novelists have “It was a dark and stormy night.” For planetary scientists, the equivalent cliche is, “We expect to be surprised.” The story of every new space mission seems to begin that way. No matter how intensely researchers study some solar-system object, no matter how they muster the best resources available on Earth, they are inevitably caught off-guard when they get to study it up close for the first time. And no matter how worn and familiar that cliche may sound, it also rings true every time. Nature’s creativity surpasses human imagination, time after time.

Even by those standards, the flight of the New Horizons probe past Ultima Thule tonight is something special. In the words of Alan Stern, the mission’s principle investigator and spiritual leader, “We’ve never, in the history of spaceflight, gone to a target we know less about.” It’s a type of object never seen up close before, a small (30 kilometers wide) member of the Kuiper Belt. Even more exciting, it belongs to the so-called “cold classical” region of the Kuiper Belt, meaning that it probably has remained largely unchanged for more than 4 billion years, frozen in deep storage 6.5 billion kilometers from the Sun.

Will it look battered from ancient collisions? Will it be covered with organic molecules from the early solar system? Will it resemble Pluto’s moons, or look like a fresh comet, or like something else entirely? Nobody knows.

0 free articles left
Want More? Get unlimited access for as low as $1.99/month

Already a subscriber?

Register or Log In

0 free articlesSubscribe
Discover Magazine Logo
Want more?

Keep reading for as low as $1.99!

Subscribe

Already a subscriber?

Register or Log In

Stay Curious

Sign up for our weekly newsletter and unlock one more article for free.

 

View our Privacy Policy


Want more?
Keep reading for as low as $1.99!


Log In or Register

Already a subscriber?
Find my Subscription

More From Discover
Recommendations From Our Store
Shop Now
Stay Curious
Join
Our List

Sign up for our weekly science updates.

 
Subscribe
To The Magazine

Save up to 40% off the cover price when you subscribe to Discover magazine.

Copyright © 2024 Kalmbach Media Co.